


Angels of Our Better Nature

by Ellynne



Category: Once Upon A Time - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-09-06 21:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 46,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8770180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellynne/pseuds/Ellynne
Summary: A ghost wanders Storybrooke, trying to break free of its curse while helping people Belle would have once helped. Meanwhile, Belle struggles with the strange emptiness inside her. A fixit for season 6.





	1. This Is the Creature

A book title and a subject reference, _Prospero’s Commentaries on Scott_ ,  _Uncursing,_ that was all the first text was.  But, Grumpy found it lying in the stack of books in Belle’s workroom in the library _._ Inside, he found the section Belle had underlined, one word written on a post-it note in the margin.

_How?_

That was when he got the second text.  He handed the book to Astrid as he looked at what else Belle had to say.  There was only one word:

_Rope._

Astrid’s eyes had widened as she read the instructions.  “This should work,” she told him. “It doesn’t really break the curse, it just makes a sort of bubble, pushing it off for just a few moments.  Sort of.  I mean, that’s what it looks like.  Mostly.”  She looked like a little kid who knew she was messing up in front of a teacher. “It’s hard to explain.”

“I don’t need explanations,” Grumpy said. “Just tell me, can you do it?”

“Me?’ She’d looked surprised.  People didn’t often ask Astrid for help, especially magic help. 

“Why not you?  I’ve seen you do magic.  You’re better than you think.” Especially when she didn’t have Blue looking over her shoulder.  “Remember the candles?” he added.  “Everybody in town was cursed.  No happy endings, right? But, we still found a way to save the day, didn’t we?”

“I . . . I can _try,_ ” Astrid said. “But, it won’t change anything. It just gives us a few moments.  We can’t even—”

Grumpy showed her the second text.

“Oh,” Astrid said. “Rope.  Yeah, that should work.”

That was how they got Dopey back.  Doc wasn’t too certain about it.  After all, Astrid was the one mixing the potion.  “Remember when that spell of hers went wrong and people had their feet on backward?” he asked.

“This is different,” Grumpy said. “She isn’t inventing a spell.  She’s just following one that’s already laid out in a book.  No problem.”

“I don’t know. . . .”

“It’s this or nothing.  You think Regina’s going to get our brother back?  Assuming we ever see her again?”

No one mentioned Emma.  Emma had nearly destroyed Storybrooke along with her crazy boyfriend one day, then gone marching off into the Underworld the next, dragging everyone she thought might be useful along with her. 

They didn’t mention Rumplestiltskin, either.  The guy might not have magic anymore but he knew more about it than anyone else living, _especially_ curses.  But, he was one of the people Emma had dragged off.  Since the last time Emma needed the imp, she’d chained him up in a dungeon before siccing a crazy assassin/cursed bear on him, Grumpy would bet his beer tab that, however Emma got him to go with her, it had been by doing something a whole lot worse than saying, “please.”

And the guy was just human, now.  Grumpy hadn’t said anything to Belle but he didn’t think much of Gold’s chances of getting back.

They went to the town line and looked at the tree that had been their brother a few weeks ago. 

The rope went first.  Since no one in town had been a cowboy-rodeo-star under the curse, they didn’t try to lasso him.  Grumpy had tied the rope to a metal weight made from two steel rings from his boat joined together.  It took a couple throws, but he got it in position.

Then, he reached over the line with a long pole with a hook tied to the end.  Grumpy had spent years under the curse doing community service every other time he got drunk.  He’d developed a real flair for making a quick trash grab with a stick when they put him on roadside garbage pickup.  This was the same thing.  Except for making sure he didn’t put so much as a hair over the town line.  They were _pretty_  sure you had to be all the way over before something bad happened to you, but it wasn’t like anyone ran tests.

He got the hook into the second ring, the one that didn’t have the rope tied through it.  He dragged it back then tied the rope into a noose knot and pulled.  That wasn’t going to come loose in a hurry.  The rope was about waist high, and Grumpy could only hope that was where it would be on Dopey.  No one was ever going to let Grumpy forget it if he wound up strangling his brother.

“OK,” he told Astrid. “We’re ready.”

Astrid stepped forward with the leaf blower Grumpy had modified  (there were advantages to being a general handyman and custodian.  See if anyone else thought of using a modified leaf blower to break a curse).  Astrid checked the wind before holding  up the machine nervously.

“It’s all right, Astrid,” Grumpy said. “Take your time.  Just do it like we practiced.”  The practice shots had been with sand and flour, not magic dust, but they ought to work about the same, right?

Astrid gritted her teeth and nodded.  She aimed the leaf blower and turned it on.  Grumpy couldn’t hear her over the machine, but he could see her lips moving as she recited the spell.  The magic dust flew out in a sparkly cloud.  Grumpy and his brothers tightened their grip on the rope.

The tree collapsed in on itself, becoming Dopey.  The rope was around his chest, not his waist, but that was good enough.

“Pull!” Grumpy shouted.

The Dwarves pulled, dragging Dopey back over the line. 

Dopey stared at him.  From the look on his face, if he could talk, they’d probably be hearing a lot of swear words.  Grumpy was guessing that meant he didn’t remember being a tree.  As far as Dopey knew, he’d just stepped over the town line a moment ago.

Then, Dopey saw Astrid, who hadn’t been there when he went over.  He looked over the others and saw the change in clothes.  It was an overcast day (but with a good, strong wind blowing in the right direction) when Dopey must be remembering blue skies from a few seconds ago.

“You turned into a tree,” Grumpy said. “Astrid turned you back.  Sorry, it took a while.”

“He’s not going to become a tree again, is he?” Happy asked.

Doc checked his watch.  “You said the dust would last for a minute at most, right?”

“Go for two, just to be safe,” Grumpy said.

They waited while Doc watched the second hand. 

“Time.”

They all looked at Dopey.

“I don’t see any branches,” Happy said.

“Or leaves,” Sneezy added, blowing his nose.  They needed to get him back indoors away from the pollen (honestly, it was like someone had tried to make a dwarf who _couldn’t_ leave the mines, not if he wanted to breathe.  But, this world had some pretty strong allergy medicine.  Maybe not strong enough to clear Sneezy up entirely, but it let him walk around outdoors on days like today).

Dopey signed “Thank you,” to Astrid.  That was another thing they got in this world, sign language.

“You’re welcome,” Astrid said. “But, Belle’s the one you should really thank.  She told us how to do it.”

“Where’s Belle?” Dopey signed.

“I tried to call her when we got everything together,” Grumpy said. “But, she wasn’t picking up.  I’m hoping she finally got some sleep.  She’s been burning the candle from both ends way too long.” Take that text message where she told them how to free Dopey.  Belle’s messages had been getting less and less clear, and it was even worse talking to her face to face.  You had to look at the dark circles under her eyes and try to make out what she was saying between yawns.  But, the last message had been short even for her.

One thing you could say about Gold, he did a good job of keeping Belle from working herself to death.  Of course, if people needed a magical solution (and were willing to pay the price), he could take care of it with a snap of his fingers instead of letting her do it.

Or he had.  Grumpy wondered what things would be like in Storybrooke without a Dark One.  Sure, he was still the _Dark_ One.  Even with Belle around, nobody expected him to turn into the Starlight-Twinkle-And-Pretty-Rainbows One, but he was a whole lot better than Emma or Hook had been.  At least, Gold hadn’t ever tried to kill everyone.

It wasn’t till they got back to town, though, that they found out what had happened to Belle.  The convent was in an uproar when they went to drop off Belle.  She’d stopped by to check in on Neal and Baby Hood (someone needed to name that kid. They all knew what Zelena had done to Robin to get that baby, but couldn’t he handle being around long enough to fill in the birth certificate?).  Somehow, with a small army of nuns to fall back on, none of them had time to feed the two infants they’d promised to look after.

OK, so fairies and nuns didn’t do babies normally, not any more than Dwarves did.  But, come on, even Grumpy had heard of bottles and burping.  What did they think they were volunteering for?  Watching over a pet rock?

Whatever the fairies’ problem, Belle had stopped by to make sure the babies had some human interaction and didn’t starve.  And she’d vanished, her and the Baby-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

It had taken the fairies a while to notice.  None of them had gone into check until Neal was screaming at the top of his lungs (that was another thing about babies it seemed like the fairies didn’t know.  No matter what people were like when they grew up, none of them started off with a thing about silent suffering.  Babies let you hear about it when the world wasn’t living up to their expectations).  Even with a baby and Belle both missing, they still hadn’t caught on that there was a problem.  They figured Belle had taken the Nameless One for a walk without getting around to feeding Neal. Like that would happen.

“When?” Grumpy asked.  “When did she go missing?”

All they could do was estimate.  They knew the time she’d come and they knew when they’d begun to realize Belle was really missing and not just taking a walk around the convent grounds.  It was a pretty wide margin.

Grumpy was willing to narrow it down.  He looked at the text he’d been sent.  It had been right after Belle would have been picking up one of the babies, a bottle in hand.

Belle might work herself to death someday, trying to solve other people’s problems.  But, Grumpy didn’t think even she would text curse-breaking advise instead of asking for help when she’d been kidnapped.

 _Belle, are you there?_ he sent.

There was a pause, a long one.  He didn’t know why he should feel that way.  He was sending a text to someone who wasn’t there.  Why should he even expect an answer?  But, he did.  More than that, it was as if he could feel someone on the other side, looking at his words and deciding how to answer.

The letters appeared slowly, as if someone were holding his phone and typing them as he watched even though he knew phones didn’t work that way, even though it said the message was coming from Belle.

 _Rilke,_ that was the first word.

Then came the next line, _Sonnets._

Followed by _to Orpheus._

_II. 4._ _Ln. 1_

He was a Dwarf.  He worked in the heart of the earth with tons of dirt and rock ready to cave in on him if something went wrong and only a narrow tunnel standing between him and suffocation.  When that was done, he ground diamonds into dust.  He didn’t do fear—and he didn’t waste time thinking about horror movies or anything else like that.  So far, nothing of Stephen King’s had creeped out of his corner of Maine to come visit Storybrooke, and that was how Grumpy liked it (if things changed, Grumpy figured a vampire went down when its head got swiped off by a pickax, same as everyone else).

So, he didn’t feel anything cold tingling up and down his spine as he looked at the messages.  He _didn’t._  Instead, he just looked at what they said, all calm and rational.  Really.

He had a name (he guessed Rilke was a name) and a title.  The numbers and things probably meant it was from a play or something like that, right?

He went to the library again.  No sign of Belle (he looked).  But, after a little work (he _really_ wished Belle was there), he found a book of poems by someone named Rilke (and what had that Dewey guy been smoking when he came up with this decimal thing?).  He checked the table of contents and found _Sonnets to Orpheus_ (even a Dwarf knew who Orpheus was, but Grumpy figured now wasn’t the time to be thinking about people who chased their spouses into the land of the dead or what that might say about what had happened to Belle).  Chapter  II, Part 4, or whatever you called them in poems.

Line one.

_O this is the creature that has never been._

He wanted to growl at the bad joke and how much time he had wasted finding it.

But, he didn’t because, deep down, he was sure he’d been given as honest an answer as he was going to get. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The metal weight Grumpy used was an eye bolt attached to an eye screw. But, there's something about using "eye bolt" and "eye screw" in the same sentence that's hard to take seriously.


	2. Trick of the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shadow is watching.

Astrid started and turned to look at the glass window in the front of Granny’s diner, frowning.  She’d seen—she thought she’d seen—

No.  Just a trick of light.  Light and nerves, making her imagine things.

All the same, she reached out towards the glass.  Then, she stopped, uncertain, as if she were trying to pet a growling dog that was ready to lunge and bite.

“Something wrong?”

Granny was standing at the diner door, scowling with either her usual impatience or—maybe—worry.  With Granny, it was hard to tell.

“I thought—it looked like—there was a reflection in the glass.  For just a second,” Astrid said.  “It surprised me.  That’s all.”

“A reflection?” Old or not, Granny still had the piercing eyes of a prowling wolf.  They sliced up Astrid and saw through every inch of her. “What of?”

“Nothing,” Astrid said.  “It was nothing.”  She turned and began walking away, fighting the urge to run. Don’t run from predators, wasn’t that what they always said?  Don’t show them you’re afraid.  “I’ve got to get back to the convent,” she said, scurrying off.

 _Don’t show them you’re afraid,_ she told herself again.  She didn’t mean Granny.

X

The shadow in the mirror growled and clawed at the cold glass.  No one saw.  No one heard.  Its angry blows left no mark behind them.

The fairy had seen it.  It _knew_ she had seen it.  She had been reaching out—

And, if she had, then what?  She wasn’t the first.  The shadow had learned how to move from glass to glass, through the sparkle of light, the reflection of darkness.  Now and again, people saw it from the corner of their eyes.  When they did, a few did the same thing the fairy had.  They stopped and frowned, uncertain of what they had seen, searching for answers.

And never finding them.

Whether they shrugged and walked away or kept looking back with troubled eyes, they never knew what they had seen.  Though the shadow pounded the glass and screamed till its throat was raw, they saw nothing, heard nothing.

Until it found its voice. Until it made itself heard.

The queen was gone.  Its memory was weak, but it knew it was the queen who had trapped it here, draining its strength— _feeding_ on it.

But, the queen had left.  Whatever she had done to it was fading.  The shadow was growing stronger.

Strong enough that, perhaps, if the fairy had touched the window, her magic would have let her feel something.  Perhaps, this time, someone would have heard the shadow’s voice, at last, and pulled it free.

Or perhaps not.  It had no words of its own.  Even to itself, it spoke only in empty howls.  Watching the dwarves, it had felt the urge, time and again, to speak out to them to offer aid.  As it had grown stronger, it had begun to understand what they were doing.  Their brother had been taken, transformed.  The fought to free him.

It had wanted to comfort, to help.  But, it had no words.  Even if it could make itself heard, there was nothing it could say to them.

Till it remembered.  It _knew_ (though it didn’t know how) what the answer was.

It should have known sooner.  It didn’t know why it thought that.  Memories drifted in and out of its mind, like wisps of smoke.  It knew the dwarves when it saw them, forgot them when they walked away.

Or it had.  Now, it struggled and fought, the same way it clawed and pounded at the glass, holding onto its drifting reason, its ragged scraps of knowledge.  It knew what the Dwarves wanted and it knew how to give it to them.

If it could only make them hear. . . .

No voice.  No _words_.  And yet. . . .

There had been another, one who knew things, one who had searched for answers and never seen what was lying right there for anyone who would _think_.  It couldn’t use that one’s voice but it could use the things it had known, the _words_ that one had known.

It moved from mirror to window to glass till it touched the small screen in the Dwarf’s phone.  Such a small spance, not even glass.  But, it was enough.  The shadow reached for the other’s memories, trying to make them fit what it needed to say.  The words printed on the screen, neat and tidy, the name of a book.

Yes, that was good.  The other had always found answers in books.  Surely, the Dwarf would understand that?

Whether he did or not, the Dwarf needed to know more.  He asked a question: _How?_

The shadow struggled to shape an answer.  It knew the solution, saw it clearly, but had no words to reply, no images it could form.

Till it remembered.  A simple thing.  An old story.  A mystery.  It could borrow the name of it.

_Rope._

Exhausted, the shadow sank back, content for once to rest in its prison. 

That might have been the end of the matter.  The shadow felt as if it were drifting away, no longer having the strength to hold mind and memory together. Was it sleeping?  Or, energy spent, was its mind once again fading into nothingness?

But, the Dwarf had asked a question, jarring it back awake.

_Belle, are you there?_

Belle.

The word rooted in its mind. 

_Belle._

_Are you Belle?_

Yes.

No.

No.  It had watched Belle.  It remembered now.  It had seen her, watching from the convent windows as she cared for the infants left at there.  The woman who had been the sheriff and became the Dark One, when she sent the warrior she had enslaved to kill Belle, it had witnessed everything from the shadows. 

And—and—

The queen.  It remembered the queen.  When she had torn out Belle’s heart.  It had seen that, felt that, standing to the side and watching as the queen had reached in and ripped her apart.

The shadow wasn’t Belle.  It wasn’t anyone, anything at all.

It didn’t even have words to answer.

But, Belle would have had words.

It thought, trying to remember what Belle knew.

 _Rilke._   That was what it needed, the name.  _Sonnets,_ that was where the answer had been written.

It struggled to see the book.  There was more to it.  _Orpheus._ Yes, that felt right.  The poet who had gone to the Underworld to bring back the dead.  Of course.  It would be that.

The second section, the first line.

It knew the meaning of what was written there even if it couldn’t remember what was said.  When, later, the Dwarf read the poem, whispering the words, it shivered, feeling the truth of them.

_O, this is the creature that has never been._

Never  been.  It had never been.

It reached against the glass, trying to touch the other side.

 _Let me out,_ it thought without words.  _Let me live._


	3. Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are strange songs playing in Storybrooke, but only Grace seems to hear what it is asking her to do.

Even if His Royal Highness, Prince Henry Good-for-Nothing Mills-Swan-Cassady-Nolan had been there, Grace wouldn’t have asked him if he had any idea what was going on with the music. Because, even if he _had_ been there, he would be too busy making moon eyes at _Lady_ Violet of Camelot to think of anything useful—or to think at all.

It wasn’t like she cared.  Henry had been a cute baby.  She’d helped her mother babysit him a few times when she was little.  She’d _changed his stinky diapers_ —and wouldn’t she like to tell Lady Violet that!  Better still, she wished she could find a pile of those old, _stinky_ diapers and give them to Violet and see if she still liked Henry, then.

It wasn’t as if Grace liked Henry—not _liked_ liked.  She’d looked out for him when he was a little kid starting school and she’d listened to him when he’d gotten a little older and been upset because all his friends kept changing and he didn’t.  Even if she hadn’t understood what he meant back then, she’d listened.

Then, when they’d finally been the same age, they’d been friends—real friends.  After the curse broke, they’d stayed friends, even if Henry did go off and do crazy things sometimes, like when he tried to drop dynamite down the wishing well.

Then, thanks to Zelena, he got zapped over to Camelot and came back with Lady Violet, who thought it was _so funny_ when she found out Grace’s other name was Paige.  Pages, she’d told Grace, were _boys_ , boys who served knights and _ladies_.

Now, Henry was gone, off on adventures again.  And he was probably going to come back with even _more_ girls trailing after him, a whole parade who would giggle and flirt and talk about all the places they’d been that were so much better than Storybrooke.  And Henry, because he was stupid, would make moon eyes at all of them.

Which was too bad because, before he got so stupid, Henry might have been able to figure out what was wrong with the music.

Grace hadn’t noticed at first.  There was always music in the background in this world.  Stores played it.  There were radios and ipods and muzak and playlists on smart phones.  Even when you couldn’t hear what someone was listening too, a lot of people would forget themselves and hum along. Grace remembered the time Henry had started singing along with “Only You” when it played—not really singing, just sort of mumble-whispering the words without thinking about it—and Violet had given him moon eyes.

Hmph.

It wasn’t till the time she’d been switching channels on the radio—her dad (her _real_ dad) had a beautiful, huge, walnut case radio that must have been an antique even when Storybrooke was first made and that got radio shows she didn’t think were still playing in the outside world—when she heard a song.

_London Underground! London Underground!_

_They’re all greedy cu—_

And, then, the song suddenly cut off, replaced by static.  After a moment, the sound came back, and a different song was playing.

 _Trippin' out_  
Spinnin' around  
I'm underground, I fell down  
Yeah, I fell down  
  
I'm freakin' out  
So where am I now?

It had been happening for a while.  She just hadn’t noticed.  They were all different songs but, every time Grace heard music, she kept hearing the same things over and over again.

 _Trapped in the dark,_ the muzak piped in at the pharmacy played. _I’m buried alive._ When she went to the diner, Granny was explaining radio to someone from Camelot (not Violet) while David Bowie sang.

_Daddy, daddy, get me out of here_  
Ah ha, I'm underground  
Sister sister please take me down  
Ah ha I'm underground  
Ah ha I'm underground  
Ah ha I'm underground 

When sea shanties played (and they did. A lot. From the books she read, Grace didn’t think that happened much outside of Storybrooke either), they all seemed to have a chorus about _Secrets hidden below, below, belo._ It was almost as bad as all the times she heard _Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead_ (just about everyone in Storybrooke liked that song. But, with all the witches in the Underworld or MIA, now, they could play it).

_She’s gone where the goblins go_

_Below, below, below._

Henry, even if he was an idiot, would have had some ideas.  They might even have been good ones.  He was the only person who’d even realized there was a curse.  Maybe he’d be smart enough to know what was happening.

But, Henry wasn’t here.  Grace had to figure this one out on her own and she didn’t have clue.  She remembered when Henry had told her about the curse.  He’d told her _everything._ He’d even shown her the book.  And Grace hadn’t believed him.

She hadn’t made fun of him, the way some of the kids did.  And she’d _never_ told him he was crazy.

But, she still hadn’t believed him.

Grace wondered if Violet had believed Henry when no one else would back in Camelot.  It must have sounded crazy when he told people they were from another world and his mom was the Dark-One-Savior-Fairytale-Princess-of-the-Enchanted-Forest-Sheriff-Bounty-Hunter.

Of course, Lady Violet was probably used to stories like that. This was Camelot and Merlin and knights having more adventures before breakfast than Storybrooke saw in a year.  When someone popped in from another world, Grace bet they just asked them about the weather and asked them to tea.  After all that, believing Henry must have been easy. 

It hadn’t been easy for Grace.  Even when Henry had shown her the book, she’d thought it was just a bunch of stories.  Even when she opened it on a picture of a man locked in a dark room full of hats.

Grave remembered that.  She remembered the way the man seemed to look right at her.  She remembered the look in his eyes, desperate, like a drowning man going down for the third time while people pretended not to see. Grace had wanted to help him more than anything.  She wanted to reach out and pull him to shore.

Instead, she’d closed the book and handed it back to Henry, refusing to even look at it again.  It wasn’t till the curse was broken that she knew it had been Papa in the picture.  He’d been trapped by Cora, the Queen of Hearts, the Evil Queen’s mother.  She hadn’t known Papa was in Storybrooke, watching her every day, unable to come near her because of the curse.  If she _had_ known, if Papa _had_ been able to walk up to her and tell her . . . she supposed she would have run away screaming.

Someone was trapped, Grace thought, someone who couldn’t ask for help any more than Papa could when he was cursed.

She couldn’t tell Papa.  Papa was . . . he didn’t . . . he had more good days, now, than bad days.  Dr. Hopper was helping him.  When Papa couldn’t make himself leave the house to go see Dr. Hopper in town, Dr. Hopper called and spoke to him over the phone.  Sometimes, he even came over in person and talked to him face to face.  Dr. Hopper always sounded calm when that happened, but Grace had learned to watch for the worried wrinkle he got just over his eyebrows.

When Ingrid had been casting her curse on the whole town, though, Papa left the house, even though Grace could see how scared he was.  The curse would make people turn on anyone and everyone.  Papa took Grace to the safe room and told her to wait till she knew if the curse was past—or that there was no one left.  Then, he’d left.  He’d been terrified but he was more scared of hurting Grace than he was of leaving.

One moment, Grace had been huddled in a corner, trying not to cry and missing Papa.  The next, she was angry.  She was boiling with fury—at Papa for leaving, at her other parents for lying, at Regina for doing this to them, at Henry because he loved Regina, and at everyone else in the stupide town.

But, she stayed in the room.  Because she promised.  And because, angry as she was, she was too scared to go out.

Then, the anger was gone.  All that was left were the angry words Grace had scrawled in her diary.  Papa had come back.  He was white and shaking like a leaf, but he was back. 

Grace had cried and hugged him and had a tea party, just like when she was a little girl.

She’d hidden away her diary.  She’d wanted to rip the pages out and tear them to bits but, every time she tried, she started to read what she’d written.  It was ugly and awful and cruel.

And it was true.  A little.  Or maybe more than a little.

Tearing it up wouldn’t make go away.

There’d been a lot of bad days after that.  Dr. Hopper came to the house to check on him.  Papa spoke to him at the door but he wouldn’t— _couldn’t_ — let him in the house.

Telling Papa about someone trapped, someone she was trying to help?  Grace couldn’t do that.

If Henry were here, she’d ask him.  Even if he didn’t want anything to do with her, he’d help.  He’d probably call it “Operation Star-Nosed Mole” and make a code book. And, even if he only showed precious Lady Violet the code book and forgot Grace had anything to do with this, he’d be doing _something_ to help, which was more than Grace had done.

She’d spent hours trying to think what she should do but had no ideas.  In the end, she tried to distract herself.  There was homework, after all.  But, nothing made sense and it all blended together.  After staring at the same page for fifteen minutes and realizing she didn’t know if it was her math book or history, she put it aside and walked around her room.  When that got boring, instead of homework, she picked up a book Ms. Belle had suggested she read last time she was at the library.  Opening at random, Grace came to a story where there was a big feast and a princess was dancing for some important guest of the king.  But, while she danced, the princess had a dream or a vision.  It was the story behind the dance about a goddess trying to pick a flower.

 _Boring, boring, boring,_ Grace thought.  This was stupid.  It wasn’t helping.  It was—

Words jumped out at her.  _Before I could call my mother’s name the earth opened under me, into the darkest of all darks, under the ground._

Under the ground, Grace thought, staring at the page.  Under. The. Ground.

_When I had danced that, I was still not frightened, only I felt a dreadful sorrow, something also I’d never known. I knew it was hers, the sorrow of the goddess’ mother, and that she searched for me over the earth. Her golden feet passed above my head, but all I could do was tap at the shell of the ground, and she never heard._

Grace dropped the book on her bed and ran for her phone, not stopping to think.  _Ms. Belle,_ she typed (her parents—her other parents, the ones the curse gave her—had taught her to always be polite to grownups, and Grace couldn’t break the habit), _I read the story. Who’s trapped underground?_

She sent it before she realized how stupid it was.  It was just a story.  Ms. Belle wouldn’t know what she was talking about.  Besides, Ms. Belle was missing.  Grace hadn’t told Papa.  It would just make him fidget and worry.  Grace tried not to think about it.  But, Ms. Belle had vanished, and no one knew where.  She wouldn’t be answering Grace’s text.

Except she did.

 _Into the darkest of all darks,_ the text said, _under the ground._

It was the words from the story, even though Grace hadn’t told which story she’d read.

 _Yes,_ she texted back.  _Who?  How do I help them?_

There was a pause.  Then, three words: _From Queens’ Gardens._

Queens’ Gardens?  What did that mean?

_I don’t understand._

Another pause, followed by: _Spoon River Anthology, The Hill._

Well _that_ didn’t make any sense.  But, an idea was starting in Grace’s mind.  She went to her computer and googled the words.

_Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley_

_The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter?_

_All, all are sleeping on the hill._

There was more.  It was a poem about dead people, about a cemetery.

Dead people.  Henry and the others had gone to the Underworld.  Grace swallowed, wanting to run to Papa and tell him everything even if she knew she shouldn’t, wanting Papa to hold her and tell her everything would be all right, the way he used to before Regina cursed all of them.

Regina.  The first text had said, “From Queens’ Garden.”  Everyone knew where Regina buried her secrets.

But, whoever she was texting to, it couldn’t be Ms. Belle.  Could it?

 _Who are you?_ Grace asked.

She waited, thinking she would get another poem title or something.  Instead, this time, the person on the other side (was it a person?) managed four whole lines.

_Something walks_

_Along the stair—_

_Something that is_

_And isn’t there._

Grace closed her eyes and breathed in and out slowly.  It was one of the tricks Dr. Hopper had taught Papa for when he was panicking.

 _You know about the person who’s trapped,_ Grace sent.  _Queen’s Garden.  Underground.  Is it Regina’s crypt?_

Whoever (or whatever) was on the other end, it had used up its direct answers.

_Face Found in Frost, page 72, last line._

_That_ took forever to find.  Grace supposed it could be worse.  She could be getting mysterious messages in even stranger codes.  But, this was trouble enough.

_I am under that stone.  I was her prisoner. She is killing me.  Let me go._

Grace looked at those words for a long time.  She thought of Papa, the way he was now and the way he’d been when she saw him in Henry’s book and ran away.

She was sick of running away.

“All right,” Grace whispered. “I’ll find you.  I’ll let you go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes on this chapter's quotes.
> 
> Yes, there is a book called "From Queens' Gardens."
> 
> The verse is from the poem, "The Haunted House," by Vic Crume.
> 
> The short story collection Grace was reading was "Hidden Turnings." The story was "Ceres Passing" by Tanith Lee. I changed "goddess" to "goddess' mother" for clarity.
> 
> "Face Found in Frost" is a fictional book. I took a quote from "The Face in the Frost" by Bellairs and altered it (the original reads, "I am under that stone. I was his servant. They killed me. Let me go."). 
> 
> The songs are "London Underground" by Adam Kay, "Alice Underground" by Avril Lavigne, and "It's Only Forever" by David Bowie. May I add that it's harder than you'd think to find songs about being underground.


	4. Trick with a Knife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace goes on her rescue mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Sorry this one is so late. I'm writing this while slightly out of it on cold medicine, so feel free to tell me if nothing makes sense.

 

It wasn't till the Shadow saw the girl getting the knife—a long, carving knife, razor-edged and made of silver—that it knew it had miscalculated. Until then, it had only felt a kind of anxious impatience. Things were finally beginning to happen. The spell would not be broken. That was too much to hope for. But, it would be out of the Queen's hands. She would no longer be to feed on it, draining it dry.

The girl made sensible, careful preparations. She went through her father's large collection of maps till she found one he had drawn of the cemetery. She traced different routes to the crypt and seemed to be noting what would be good places to hide. Almanacs were checked for sunrise, sunset, and when the sun would be at its zenith (the Shadow, knowing how dark magic could be weakened by the light of day, approved). Tools were collected, the larger sort that would be useful for breaking into a crypt, and smaller things that might be of use when the crypt belonged to a powerful witch. Salt and St. John's Wort, small charms meant for luck. The girl had a four leaf clover pressed between wax paper that she wore on a ribbon around her neck.

Then, the girl went to get the knife. It was in a large china cabinet in one of the dining rooms in a small chest of dark walnut. The girl placed the box on the floor and opened it, revealing a set of antique silverware polished so bright, the Shadow could glide through the polished metal. A slender drawer built into the bottom of the box slid open, revealing the knife.

It was a beautiful knife. The silver was polished to mirror brightness. The Shadow slid easily into its clear, cold metal.

"Grace?" the girl's father said. He had entered the room without the girl or the Shadow noticing him. "What are you doing?"

The girl slid the knife beneath the china cabinet before turning to smile at her father. "I wanted to have a tea party, Papa," she said. "Won't you join me?"

There was something wrong with the girl's smile, something wrong with sound of her voice. The Shadow tried to think of the right words.

 _False,_ it decided. _Strained._

And that was when the Shadow knew the girl meant to go alone. She hadn't told her father or anyone else. And there was nothing it could do to stop her.

X

Now that Grace had gotten the message, the songs had gone back to normal. Or mostly normal. _Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead_ was always playing somewhere in Storybrooke. Love songs were back to being on all the time. There was a lot about roses. It was sickening. When some pathetic girl started singing about how all she asked for was "a faithful rose by a lonely, magic stream," Grace turned the music off. _That_ couldn't be a message from whoever or whatever it was that was sending her messages. And, if it was, it was a message she didn't need to hear.

She wondered if Henry had ever given Violet roses.

 _Violets,_ she thought. _He probably gave her violets and white roses_.

At least, he couldn't give her violets and red roses. Those would look awful together.

And she was stupid to be wasting time thinking about it when she had more important things to do. She checked over her supplies one last time. This was it. Nothing to do now but march off to the cemetery.

She'd chosen her the time very carefully. It was eleven o'clock. If magic (or ghosts) were going to be a problem, Grace figured the closer to noon, the better. Dark magic (and ghosts and zombies and anything else that was less dead than it should be) were supposed to be at their weakest at noon. This gave her a time window.

It also meant she had time before Papa realized she'd cut class. She'd already sent the school a message from Papa's phone that she was sick and wouldn't be coming in today, so they wouldn't call. So long as she could get a signed excuse in tomorrow (and she could. Grace felt a twinge of guilt, but she was getting very good at writing things out for Papa), she'd be fine.

That left only the crypt.

There were other crypts in the cemetery but none of them had names on them which, even by Storybrooke's standards, was a little weird. But, Grace didn't remember anyone talking about it back during the curse. She'd heard they were all empty. Maybe the Queen just didn't want anyone else to have a big monument like she did.

Or, maybe, they were all gateways to dark things better left alone.

There'd been a time when Henry would have asked his grandfather, but they'd had a falling out after the Curse of Shattered Sight. There were dozens of different rumors, but Henry wasn't talking about it. Not that it mattered. Grace thought Mr. Gold would probably know, but he wasn't around to ask any more than Henry was.

Grace thought she _might_ get up the courage to ask him if he were, even if Henry wouldn't come with her. Papa didn't talk about it much but he said Gold was much better to deal with than the Queen. And he _always_ kept his bargains. You just had to listen very, very closely to every word he said. Of course, just because the person sending music messages had been cursed by the Queen, didn't mean Mr. Gold might not have something to do with it.

If it was a person. It talked. Sort of. So, it had to be a person, right? Or it was close enough to a person that the difference didn't matter, did it?

Papa might know. But, Papa would be scared if she talked to him about this. He would shut them up in the house and stop her from doing anything, when she had to help. She _had_ to. She hadn't done anything to help, not when the Queen came and took Papa away and not when he spent the whole curse trying to get back to her. She couldn't just sit back and do nothing, not again.

X

The Shadow watched as the girl went along to the cemetery. This was wrong. It wasn't supposed to be like this. _No one_ knew where the girl was. The school thought she was home sick, and her father thought she was at school. The girl took paths through the woods, skirting around the town and keeping out of sight.

The Shadow didn't think of its past, not often. It didn't even have memories, not from before. But, there were feelings and half-formed images. It remembered being like this, confident, on its own, and so very sure of its path, until—until—

_The Queen finds you. The Queen traps you, locks you in the dark. You are alone, always alone, except for her eyes watching you. . . ._

It had been sending her other messages or trying to. The girl had stopped listening. By the time it tried to send warnings, it was too late.

_The wood is full of shining eyes,_

_The wood is full of creeping feet,_

_The wood is full of tiny cries:_

_You must not go to the wood at night!_

The Shadow tried that and others, hoping the girl would chance to hear them, but she didn't. If only she'd been in the town, it thought. It could send songs chasing after her there. They would come piping out of the diner and every store. A car wouldn't pass by without calling out a warning.

Instead, it could only watch as the girl stood resolutely in front of the crypt, a crowbar in one hand, a silver knife in the other. A school backpack, full of more tools and charms, slung over her shoulder.

There was no magic on the door (there had been, hadn't there? It remembered curses falling from the sky like shards of glass. There had been a spell on the door then, hadn't there? To keep the Evil Queen inside. . . .) The girl quickly forced the lock and pushed it open.

The Shadow remembered another door, closed for years, for a lifetime. Trapped in darkness underground, no company but a pair of eyes staring back at it. Would escape have been this easy? A piece of iron, and it would have been free.

The girl wandered around the crypt, examining it, before she began to push at the stone coffin. The Shadow hadn't told her to do this. Had she known all along this was the doorway? Or had she figured it out once she was inside?

Down she went, into the dark below. The knife was held ready, the iron bar raised like a club. Iron was good against certain magics but not the Queen's. Silver was only a little better.

The girl paused at the drawers where the Queen kept her beating hearts. They were silent now. Had she finally muffled them? Or . . . had they been returned? The Shadow didn't know.

The girl came at last to the room where the Queen kept her magics. Potions and books of spells, tucked carefully away.

And this spell. The one that bound the Shadow.

The girl didn't see it at first. She had to go through the room carefully, looking at everything. She stopped and gave a mirror a long look. The Shadow, slid out of the blade and into the frame, looking back at the girl, feeling hope rise inside her. But, there was no recognition in the girl's eyes, no light of hope or fear. The Shadow slid back into the knife.

Then, she saw it.

If the Shadow breathed, it would have caught its breath. The girl's eyes lit on a bell-shaped, glass dome. Beneath it was a rose, sapphire blue. The Shadow saw the girl mouthing the words to one of the songs it had sent out, _a faithful rose._

"True blue?" she whispered and reached out for it. There was a flash of light, and the girl screamed.

X

Grace was thrown back against a wall as the light blinded her. Ropes seemed to lace around her, holding her tight. She kept her grip on the crowbar and knife but couldn't bring them against whatever was holding her. As her vision began to clear, she saw them. They were vines growing out of the patterns etched into the walls.

"Help me!" Grace screamed, knowing there wouldn't be anyone to hear. Or shouldn't be. But, there wasn't anything else she could do—and she would feel so stupid if she stayed trapped forever and there _were_ people who could have helped her. " _Help me!_ "

"Did you ever read 'The Cask of Amontillado'?" a familiar voice asked.

" _Papa?_ "

He was breathing hard. The cravat he always wore was askew, showing the red line around his neck where she knew the Queen of Hearts had cut off his head. His eyes were wild, darting around the room, as he stood in the doorway.

"Did you read it, Grace?"

"We—we had it in class last year."

"And what did it teach you about going down into crypts without letting anyone know where you'd gone?"

"Sorry, Papa."

Papa walked into the room. He was tense and kept looking around, as if he expected to be attacked at any moment.

 _Well, that makes sense,_ Grace thought.

When he reached her, he pulled out what looked like a Bowie knife, except that it was gold and engraved with lots of strange letters Grace didn't know how to read. He used it to cut away at the magic vines. He caught hold of her once they were no longer holding her up (Grace, careful not to cut him with her own knife, wrapped her arm around him) till he had cut her free and helped her down.

"You're old enough to know better, Grace."

"Sorry, Papa. Is that a magic knife?"

"Magic enough. Rumplestiltskin made it. And don't change the subject. Do you know how many weeks I spent learning to pick locks and spin a good story before I was allowed on my first housebreaking? And all I had to get past was an old drunk and a mastiff that loved anyone who fed him a piece of liver. And you thought you could just walk into the Evil Queen's crypt?"

"Sorry, Papa. Maybe you could teach me to pick locks?"

Papa gave her a dark look. "I promised your mama I would give up stealing and raise you well. Why would I teach you to pick locks?"

"For the next time I have to break into a crypt, Papa. I _had_ to," she added, before Papa could tell her what he thought of crypt-breaking. She poured out the story, about the trapped person sending her messages. "That's it," she said, pointing to the blue rose. "That's what I have to get to free her."

"How do you even know she's a she?"

Grace rolled her eyes. "She sent messages in love songs, Papa. With roses. Of course, she's a she. And Regina's got her under a spell. Taking that will break it. _Please,_ Papa!"

"And how do you think I can get it when you couldn't?"

"Can't you? You told me you took a crystal ball from the Witch of the West. Can't you get that rose?"

Papa sighed. "Grace, do you know how I got into the witch's castle?"

"By being very clever, Papa?"

"Of course. But, I also had a charm Rumplestiltskin had given me, a small sprig of moly that would help me get past some of her spells."

Moly. Grace had heard of it although she wasn't sure how much was true and how much wasn't. Some stories made it sound like it could protect you from _any_ magic, no matter how powerful, and she didn't quite believe Mr. Gold would give Papa something like that. But, whatever he'd given Papa, it had been a long, long time ago. Grace's face fell.

Papa pulled out a gold chain with a small, crystal globe hung from it. A dried sprig of white flowers was inside. "Fortunately, he let me keep it. It wouldn't do much good if Regina were throwing fireballs at us, but. . . ." Papa reached out for the glass case then stopped. He turned to her.

"Listen carefully, Grace. If anything goes wrong, run out of here. Don't stop and don't try to help me. Go straight to town. Tell everyone you meet what happened. Get the Dwarves, tell the fairies, tell Granny at the diner. But, _don't_ come back till you know you have plenty of people who can get me out of here. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Papa."

"And do you promise? Promise you'll go and get help? And don't stop for anything?"

"I promise, Papa." There was something about the way Papa said _promise._ It was the same as the way he'd made a promise to Mama.

Before she died.

_I won't let anything happen to you, Papa._

Papa had one hand around the sphere of moly, his knuckles white. With his other hand, he reached for the bell-case and lifted it off the rose. He put it down and plucked out the rose. Grace held her breath, but no vines grew out of the walls. No lights flashed to blind them.

"All right, Grace," Papa said. "Time to go."

They got out of the crypt, pushing the stone coffin back into place. Papa looked at the door Grace had broken. "I'll have to see about fixing that," he said. "The second rule of housebreaking: It's best if they never know you were there."

"What's the first rule?"

"Don't get caught."

"Oh." Grace didn't say anything else until they were out of the cemetery. "How did you know where I was, Papa?"

"My telescope," he said. "I saw you walking this way and knew you were in trouble."

"But, why did you bring the gold knife? And the moly?"

"They're the most magical things I have besides my hat. And I knew you were going to Regina's crypt."

"How did you know? I could have just been cutting class."

Papa shrugged. "I don't know. I heard a song playing. Maybe it was your ghost friend, trying to warn me. Or maybe. . . . I know I'm not a very good Papa, Grace. I try, but. . . ."

"It's all right, Papa. You're the best Papa in the world." That sounded like something a little girl would say. If any of her friends at school heard her, they would laugh. But, it didn't matter. It was true. No matter how many mistakes Grace had made—or, Papa would say, that he had made—he was the best Papa she could have. All the years of the curse, he never gave up on her. She'd seen Henry's book. Before the curse, all the time she thought he was lost, Papa was doing everything he could to get back to her.

But, Papa shook his head. "I—I'm not quite right, Grace. I'm getting better, but . . . I saw you in my telescope. And I heard a song playing, _Season of the Witch._ I wasn't thinking. I just knew. Regina. You were doing something about Regina. And I had to come for you."

He didn't say, _The way I didn't come back before,_ but Grace could hear it in his voice. Her hand tightened around his (the silver knife and the crowbar were back in her bag). "You got there in time, Papa," she said. "Even when you're late, you _always_ get there in time."

Papa didn't say anything but he managed a small smile. Holding the rose they had stolen out of the grave, they walked back home.


	5. Listening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace talks to Henry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I didn't think Grace was going to be in any more chapters. I was wrong.

Henry was walking down Main Street not long after he got back from New York when he saw Grace stopping in front of the pawn shop, looking in the window.  He called out to her and ran over.  Grace started and looked up.  For a moment, he thought she looked worried and pale, but that vanished when she saw him.  Her face broke out into a brilliant smile, and her eyes practically glowed.

“What are you looking at?” Henry asked, looking at the window.  It was just the usual, as far as he could tell.  There was the windmill and a clock that was part of a wooden house.  Smaller objects, like a mobile made of glass unicorns and an opal necklace, were displayed around them (Gold had told him not to touch the necklace back when Henry worked in the shop. He said it was dangerous).

Grace glanced at the window, her smile flickering for a second. “Nothing,” she said.  “I thought I saw . . . it was just a reflection.”

“You should be careful,” Henry said seriously.  Grace might be the same age as him (plus twenty-eight years) but she didn’t have the _experience_ he did.  Compared to what _he_ ’d been through, she was just a kid.  “Gold’s shop can be dangerous.”

“Gold?  Don’t you call him Grandpa?”

“I only did that while I worked in his shop,” Henry said.  “You see that?” He pointed to the opal necklace. “That one’s cursed.  Gold put it in the window so that, if someone broke in, that would be one of the first things they’d steal and curse would get them.”

Grace nodded as if that were just common sense. “You have to be careful with opals.  Papa told me about that one.  It belonged to the Sorceress of Geierstein.  She did some awful things before your grandfather stopped her.”

Henry frowned, irritated.  Gold hadn’t told him the story, whatever it was, just that he should leave the necklace alone.  It seemed wrong for Grace to know it when he didn’t.  He was the author, wasn’t he?  He was the one who’d tricked his way into working for Gold, not Grace (even if Gold had known all along what he was up to). 

Henry tried to regain lost ground. “He only stopped her because someone made a deal,  right?” he said, trying to sound like he knew all about it. It wasn’t like Gra— _Gold_ —did things out of the goodness of his heart. Time to change the subject, he thought.

But, Grace didn’t give him the chance. “Not exactly,” she went on chirpily.  “Papa said she picked a fight with him, and—” She met Henry’s eyes and stumbled. “—and . . . uh . . . never mind.  Papa tells it better.” Her smile came back. “What about you? Is it true you crossed the town line?  You went all the way to New York?”

Henry preened at the amazement in her voice.  That was what he’d expected when he’d come over to speak to Grace.  Oh, he’d been to other worlds, but so had everyone in Storybrooke.  _Nobody_ crossed the town line. “We did,” Henry said. “It was after we got the Olympian crystal from Gold. . . .”

X

Something in Grace’s stomach gave a small flutter when Henry called out her name.  He looked happy to see her, and Violet was nowhere in sight.  It felt like old times, with Henry wanting to know if something strange was going on (and filing anything anyone said under whatever Operation: Code Word he was working on this week).

All the same, Grace didn’t tell him everything about the window.  For a second she’d seen—or thought she’d seen . . . well, she wasn’t sure what.  There’d been a woman reflected in the glass, her hands pressed against it.  She should have been standing right in front of it.

Which didn’t make any sense.  There wasn’t anyone there.  Grace had looked around, just in case she was nearby and some trick made her look closer.  But, there was no one.  When she looked back at the glass, the image was gone.

All the same, Grace had gone up to the window, trying to see if there was something there, something she’d missed.  It was probably just a trick of her eyes, like when she saw something out of the corner of her eye that wasn’t really there or wasn’t what she thought it was (like the time she’d thought she’d seen someone with a snake wrapped around their neck but, when she looked properly, it was only Dussie Gordon fiddling with her braids again).

But, the image had been so clear.  It had looked like Mrs. Gold.  Only, not like her.  The face was leaner and harder.  She looked angry and frustrated in a way Grace had never seen.  Also, the sun had been directly behind her, making her hair look like molten streaks of fire.  She was wearing jeans (something Mrs. Gold _never_ did) and a blue shirt almost the exact color of the rose Grace and her father had stolen from the Queen’s crypt.

Or she wasn’t, and Grace was just imagining things.  Nothing had happened since they’d taken the rose. Papa had hidden it in the safe room, and Grace checked on it at least once a day.  But, it didn’t do anything except sit there and look like a rose.  It had maybe opened up a blossomed a bit more.  The petals looked richer and fuller.  Or Grace thought they did.  Maybe.  Or maybe it was just the light.  Or her wishing something more would happen.  There hadn’t been any more messages on her phone and the songs she heard just seemed to be songs.

Not that any of that mattered right now, because Henry was talking to her, just like old times (but, he looked at the window suspiciously, as if he expected monsters and curses to come wiggling out of it.  Grace knew she’d said too much). 

Well, it was Gold’s shop.  Except, Henry never used to call him Gold, not after he found out he was his grandfather.  He looked embarrassed when Grace asked, as if he were too grownup to say things like “grandpa.” 

But, he was still the same, old Henry who wanted to warn her about dangerous magic.  Or Grace thought he was, until she tried to join in with whatever Operation Henry was working on this week and tell him what she knew about the necklace.  It slowly sucked the life out of people.  Anyone who stole the necklace would have lots of time before they started noticing a problem.  But, it would be enough to start slowing down anyone who stole it from the moment they picked it up.  Mr. Gold would have any easy time tracking down the thief.

The real problem was, once you touched it, you didn’t want to put it down.  The sorceress had used it to drain life from young girls, usually royals or nobles whose families she was plotting against, so Papa said. The last girl, however, had been part of some plan Mr. Gold had already had in motion in the old world, and he didn’t appreciate the interference. 

The story behind all that, how the girl was rescued and the sorceress was defeated, was pretty exciting, just the sort of thing Henry usually liked to hear about.  But, Grace must have said something wrong.  Henry glared at her as she started to tell him, making her stumble over her words.

Henry was the author, now (although Grace still wasn’t sure what that meant, except that he didn’t seem to be the same kind of troublemaker Isaac was).  Grace supposed he knew things she didn’t and, whatever was going on, he didn’t want to hear it, not now.

Grace took the hint and changed the subject, asking Henry about his adventures.  He’d been to _New York._   Grace might dream of going to other worlds, (but not Camelot.  Not if the all the kings and queens and stuck up knights and ladies got on their knees and begged), but those were places she could actually go.  New York, Boston, even the nearest bush on the other side of the town line, were farther away than another world could ever be.  There was no way Grace was ever going to visit them.

It had been the right thing to ask.  Henry puffed up (just a little. And he had a right to.  What he’d done was _clever_ ).  He started telling her how he had first decided to go to New York. 

“My dad didn’t like magic.  You knew that, right? I thought he might have some idea how we could get rid of it.”

“Get rid of magic?” Grace stared at him, thinking of Papa.  He’d told her how the first hope he’d had was when Emma finally came to town and brought magic with her.  But, she’d needed to believe in it.  The curse hadn’t been broken—Grace hadn’t remembered Papa—until she did. “Why would you want to do that?”

Henry looked like he couldn’t believe she was asking. “Because it messes up everything!”

“ _People_ mess things up,” Grace said. “Some just use magic to do it.”

“What about what Cora did to your dad?”

He didn’t say, _What about what my mom did to your dad?_   But, Grace thought, she might be the Evil Queen to everyone else but, to Henry, she would always be his mother.  “She wouldn’t be the first ruler to lock someone up for no reason.  You’ve read the newspapers, haven’t you?  Or our history homework?  Plenty did that in this world without any magic at all.” 

But, they were arguing, and Grace didn’t want to argue.  “Sorry,” she said.  “I didn’t mean. . . .  So, you went to New York.  And on a quest.”  She bet Violet thought that was _great._ “Did you find what you were looking for?”  Since no one had said anything about a town meeting on ending magic, Grace was guessing the answer was no.

“Oh, I found it.  And I tried to do it, but—”

“You _what?_ ”

Henry looked surprised.  “I tried to get rid of it.”

“You—without asking anyone?  Or even telling them?”

“I didn’t want anyone stopping me.”

Grace stared at Henry.  She was used to him coming up with crazy ideas.  Being Henry was all about having crazy ideas.  But, she was used to his crazy ideas making sense—she was used to them being right, once she’d found out what was really going on.

This wasn’t right.  This was terrible. “Of course, we’d stop you.” She thought of Papa, trapped in his house for twenty-eight years, knowing the truth and not being able to tell anyone.  Because no one would believe him without magic.  But, it wasn’t just Papa. “What about the fairies?  What about the Dwarves?  They can’t even get born without magic.  What about Ariel?  Magic is the only thing that keeps her human.  What happens if you take that away?  Can she even live on land?  What if she died before someone got her to water?  What about Dr. Whale?  He had his arm put back by magic.  Does it fall off if you take it away again?  Or Maleficent.  Papa says she’d turn into a pile of ashes if she goes into the Land Without Magic.  How many people in Storybrooke would die if you got rid of magic?”

“Well, I didn’t get rid of it!” Henry snapped.  “Gold stopped me.  If you want to blame someone, blame him.  He’s the one who tied all the magic to that crystal.  I wouldn’t have even thought about it if he hadn’t done that!”

“What?  Why would he do that?”

Henry shrugged.  “I don’t know.  It happened when Belle was under a sleeping curse.  I think he was trying to fix it.”

“She was under a sleeping curse?” Grace hadn’t heard anything about this.  But—but—if she’d been under a curse—and if that was why Mr. Gold wanted the crystal— “Your grandmother was under a curse—”

“She’s not my grandmother.”

“Fine, you _step_ -grandma was under a curse, and your grandpa was trying to fix it—and you _stole_ the magic he needed to help her?”

“Uh. . . .”

“And, you tried to get rid of magic?  Wouldn’t that make her stay asleep forever?” An even worse thought hit Grace.  “Henry, she’s _pregnant_ —”

“Wait, how do you know that?”

“Henry, she told Granny.  In the diner.  That’s better than a headline in _The Mirror_.  But, she didn’t mention the curse.  Your grandmother—”

“ _Step-_ grandmother.”

“—Is pregnant with your dad’s baby brother or sister, and you almost kept them under a curse _forever?_ What is _wrong_ with you?”

It occurred to Grace, as soon as the words were out of her mouth, that Violet had probably never asked Henry what was wrong with him.  Violet, after all, had gone with Henry to New York and didn’t care about Ariel or the Dwarves or Mrs. Gold or anyone else.

For the first time in a long time, Grace really didn’t care what Violet thought about Henry—or what Henry thought about her.

X

When Henry had come up to Grace, he’d expected her to listen to him the way Violet did.  She’d started out the same, looking at him as if everything he said were wonderful.  Then, he’d told her about magic.

He’d told himself he couldn’t tell his family.  His mom (Regina) would just try to stop him.  His other mom would back her up because that’s what moms did.  So would his other grandparents.

When Henry was little, he’d built sand castles on the beach, like most little kids.  Once, he’d even started to build a moat around his castle, but he’d gotten bored before he’d done much more than build a sand pail sized hole.  Then, the tide has started coming in and filled it with salt water.

The next day, he came back and found the hole was still there, though the water and drained away.  Before that had happened, a fish had gotten trapped in it.  It was still twitching when Henry saw it.

He picked it up and ran it down to the ocean, throwing it in. But, it was pushed back by the next wave.  Henry took it further in and stood by it, waiting for it to swim.  It twitched a few more times before going still.

He knew Ariel could talk to people above the water.  That meant she could breathe air, right?  Or was it magic that let mermaids do that?  Dolphins could breathe air but they still died if they got trapped on land.

For the first time, he thought about what his quest could have really done.  Would he have killed Ariel?  And what about Dr. Whale?  And everyone else?  Were there other people who would die without magic?

Grace was looking at him like he was some kind of monster—like she didn’t even recognize him.  But, she didn’t say anything else, just turned around and left.  Henry watched her go.

He didn’t see the shadow in the window behind him.  It had flickered into being while Grace yelled at Henry about his grandmother, telling him she was pregnant.

 _Pregnant,_ Henry thought.  _Grandma Belle is pregnant.  And I didn’t even think about her being cursed._ If being away from magic was all it took to break the curse, she would have woken up as soon as she was out of Storybrooke. 

Henry watched Grace till she was out of sight.  By the time he turned around and began to shuffle home, the only image reflected in the glass was his own.


	6. Wide Awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace and Jefferson talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said Grace was just a minor character, a one chapter POV. She was in and out. That was it. I was wrong. Again. 
> 
> What can I say? Stories have minds of their own.

Music.  It seemed to always be about music.

 

 _Another place and time, without a great divide_  
And we could be flying deadly high  
I'll sell my soul to dream you wide awake

 _  
_ Grace had told him about the songs that had followed her, sending her onto a mad mission to a tomb.  _Like father, like daughter._

Now, songs haunted him, though he ignored them, just as he ignored the blue rose hidden in the heart of his home.

 

 _Mercy, like water in a desert_  
Shine through my memory like jewelry in the sun  
Where are you now  
  
Another place and time...  
  
I'll dream you... wide awake

He pretended not to hear them.  He didn’t look them up or going searching for ghost messages on his phone.  There were other things to think about.  The self-proclaimed heroes and their murderous friends were back. 

The Dark One and his bride had come back after the heroes return.  No one knew why, except that the princess of Avonlea was expecting a child (rumor traveled faster than the speed of light in this town. Even Jefferson heard it).

There was another thing Jefferson had heard, something he still didn’t understand.  Grace had been in the diner when Belle walked in and went off with the pirate (madness. She had walked off with the man who had tried to murder her, her true love, and everyone else in this town).  Grace had told him what she heard the sheriff say when she saw the Dark One’s lady.

“Belle, you’re awake.”

Grace said she’d sounded surprised.  Why?  What reason, sane or mad, was there for saying such a thing?

 _I'm wide awake_  
And now it's clear to me  
That everything you see  
Ain't always what it seems  
I'm wide awake  
Yeah, I was dreaming for so long

 

He watched the goings-on in the town and the paths leading to his home, trying to ignore the music while the memories of it played through his mind.  That’s what he was doing when he saw Grace running into the house, angry and upset.  He could have told how bad it was even without his telescope, and that worried him even more.  Since the day at the queen’s crypt, he’d seen how rarely Grace seemed upset about anything—how rarely she let herself _look_ upset about anything, especially when he might see her.

She’d gone to invisible friends, the kind who could have gotten her killed, before she’d gone to him.

He heard her rush in and the door slam behind her.  She didn’t call for him—she never called for him when things went wrong.  Instead, she just ran, but the sound of her footsteps weren’t going towards her room. 

The safe room.  She was going to the safe room.

By the time Jefferson reached the hidden door, it was already closed.  During the curse, it had been behind a mirror like the one between worlds that led into Wonderland.  He didn’t know if that was Regina’s joke or just another petty cruelty from the curse.  During his twenty-eight years of watching and waiting and going mad—madder— in this town, he’d seen so many ways it poured salt on forgotten wounds.

When the curse was broken, he’d moved the mirror himself.  He’d sealed off a different room, leaving a different, hidden door for the mirror to hang over.  If Regina had made the mirror and ever came after them, she would be looking in the wrong place.  He hoped.

In its place, he’d put a wardrobe.  It was anchored against the wall, but he’d carved the back of it to have its own, hidden door that slid open on the entrance behind it.  He’d fretted no end over that.  The safe room was almost impossible to find even without the wardrobe if you didn’t know it was there, but this hid it completely.  Yet, it would take precious seconds to get through the wardrobe to the door behind it.  Still, it was always safer never even being seen.  Wasn’t it?

Jefferson went in and found Grace, pale and upset, looking at the blue rose.  Panic welled up in him.  Was someone after her?  Some _thing?_   He wished again for his hat, for a way out of this world, wishing he could grab his daughter and run.  His fingers twitched for a weapon (there were several stored in the room), to prepare to defend themselves.

Instead, he took slow, deep breaths, closing and securing the door behind them (he had to have the door closed behind him before he could speak without the terror showing in his voice.  But, he could keep calm once he’d closed it.  He _could_ ). 

Trying to remember the things Dr. Hopper had told him about dealing with the fear ( _keep calm, breathe steadily, don’t panic_.  He repeated it over and over to himself.  Even when he could feel the fear closing like a rope around the red scar on his throat, cutting off air and blood, he wouldn’t panic).  “Grace,” he said, proud of how steady his voice sounded.  “What’s happened?”

He saw Grace stiffen.  Her pale face grew tighter, like a mask.  “Nothing, Papa,” she said, trying (and failing) to sound unconcerned.  “Everything’s find.”

She was trying to protect him.  It shouldn’t be this way.  He was supposed to protect her.  On his good days, when he could see her doing it, he tried to stop her, but the gods knew those days were rare enough.

“It’s not nothing, Grace,” he said, trying to sound gentle instead of scared. “Please, tell me what’s wrong.  Is it your . . . friend?” Not the name he would have chosen.  He might have used _the man who wasn’t there_ (even if Grace thought it wasn’t a man) or _the thing that goes bump in the night_ , but he kept to the name Grace used.

He couldn’t get the songs out of his head.  _I’m wide awake.  I’ll dream you wide awake_. 

 _Shut up,_ Jefferson thought.  _Just shut up._

“I don’t know.  Not really.  It’s Henry.  I saw something and I thought. . . .  I don’t know what I thought.  It was just a reflection.  But, when I stopped to look at it, Henry saw me. . . .”  Grace began to tell about their meeting.

She liked Henry Mills, Jefferson realized.  His daughter liked a boy.  Or she had liked him.  Until today.

Jefferson felt a small twinge of sympathy for Henry.  Jefferson at that age had thought he was cutting quite the dashing figure when, in fact, he was being an obnoxious, self-centered fool.  It was a wonder more of the girls he’d been trying to impress hadn’t taken a club to his head.

But, then, Grace started to cry, and the tiny drop of sympathy turned to dust and blew away.  “He nearly killed Belle,” Grace told him.  “She’s his family—she’s going to have a baby—and he nearly _killed_ her.  And he didn’t even care!  He was _proud_ of what he’d done!”

Jefferson started.   “Belle was under a sleeping curse?”

Grace nodded.  “It happened when they were in the Underworld.  But, Rumplestiltskin freed her.”

_Belle, you’re awake._

That’s what the sheriff had meant.  She had known Belle was under a curse.  And she’d been surprised that Belle was awake.  She’d _known_ and she’d done nothing. 

Oh, the “Savior” had left her mother’s Dwarf-friend trapped over the town line, but she’d been cursed and the whole world seemed to be falling apart.  Besides, they’d figured it out on their own.  Eventually.

But, Jefferson had seen her through his telescope after the curse, going to Granny’s, hanging out with her family, meeting the pirate.  There’d been no mad dash to the library or the Pawn Shop, looking for answers.  There’d been none of the mad activity he’d seen when the Savior decided to drag everyone off to the afterlife.  Life had gone back to normal (or as close to normal as Storybrooke ever got).

_God knows that I tried_  
Seeing the bright side  
But I'm not blind anymore  
I'm wide awake

 

He looked at the blue rose.  Belle, it had to have something to do with Belle.  The rose, the ghost whose only words were stolen from books and songs, it all tied back to her. 

He thought of a song from their world, _And from her heart grew a red, red rose. . . ._ Regina stole hearts (or she had.  She’d told everyone in the town how she was over that now.  Why, she hadn’t stolen a heart for _weeks_ ).  She stored them in her tomb, where the rose had been.

Paranoia, it was one of the things Dr. Hopper had him working on, the mad moments when suspicion leaped to cold certainty without waiting for any proof to bridge the gap.  Jefferson knew he was mad.

And yet—and yet—

Was this rose grown from Belle’s heart?

It was madness, a lunatic thought, a flight of imagination that meant nothing.  And yet, he remembered the certainty he’d felt—the relief-- when he’d seen Emma Swan crossing the town line and _knew_ that the curse would be broken at last. . . .

“Why?” Grace said.  “Why would Henry do that?  What’s wrong with him?”

_From her heart grew a red, red rose.  From his heart a briar. . . ._

“I don’t know,” Jefferson said.  He put his arms around her. “I could tell you all boys are stupid when they’re Henry’s age.  But . . . I think there’s more to it than that.  His mother, Regina, never worried about consequences.” He’d learned after he’d been trapped in Wonderland how Regina had been the one to transform her father and let the Queen of Hearts steal him away.  Then, once she’d calmed down, she’d thrown Jefferson to the wolves to take him back.  She’d told him it was his own fault, too, saying he wasn’t loyal enough to family.  How long had that been before she’d decided to kill both her parents?

But, it wasn’t just Regina, was it?  Bits and pieces were coming together and he wanted to pray it was his shattered mind making them line up the way they did.  “But, something may have happened to him,” _and all his family._ “Maybe it’s something from his adventures.  He isn’t seeing consequences anymore.  Whatever’s happened, be careful of him, Grace.  Be careful of both his mothers. . . .”

Storybrooke was a nightmare.  He would do keep Grace safe from it, if only he knew how. 

 _Wide awake,_ he thought, swallowing a mad laugh (that wouldn’t comfort Grace).  _I’d sell my soul to dream you wide awake._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs in this chapter are "Wide Awake" by Katy Perry and "Dreaming Wide Awake" by Poets of the Fall. If you watch the videos, "Wide Awake" looks like something that could be from Once in its prime (especially with what happens to the prince, who reminds me of Hook). "Dreaming Wide Awake" is more tragic but seemed to fit a more positive spin on Rumbelle. It's about death and grief, but it's also about holding onto love when it seems like everything is lost. Also, if you watch the video of this, the woman looks a bit like Snow. 
> 
> The line about the red rose and briar are slightly altered from the ballad "Barbara Allan."


	7. On Your Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle and the Shadow think about what's going on. Then, Jekyll comes to visit.
> 
> Belle finally gets a POV chapter! How did this take so long in a Rumbelle fic? Honestly, the other characters snuck in and started stealing the story from me. But, finally, the main character has arrived.

Looking back, it wasn’t being betrothed to Gaston that caused the nightmares, it was the way she accepted it, the _hopelessness_ she accepted it with.

Oh, her father pointed out the hard truth.  It was necessary.  It didn’t matter that Gaston had started the war by torturing and nearly murdering a child.  They needed his help, and he wouldn’t give it, not without getting what he wanted in return. 

Yet, there were other truths lurking behind that.  Her father didn’t believe what she’d told him about Gaston.  He didn’t believe he was a monster.  He didn’t believe Gaston was the reason the Ogres had turned on them with such murderous rage.

Her mother did.  She believed Belle when no one else would.  But, she was also the one to make her understand the truth didn’t matter. 

It didn’t matter what Gaston was.  Their people would die without him, and Belle was the only coin he expected to be paid with.  There was nothing Belle could do but hold her tongue and behave as a princess should.  She accepted her fate with dignity and tried to stay out of his way.  As the war worsened, it became depressingly easy.  Gaston stayed away from the makeshift shelters where Belle helped tend the wounded and look after the refugees desperately seeking shelter behind their walls.  It also helped to remind her that these were the ones she was trying to save.

But, for all the distance she tried to keep between them, he was the nightly horror in her dreams.   Whether she left the castle to wander corpse-strewn battlefields or whether the Ogres came to her, overwhelming their defenses, Gaston was always there, in the center of the slaughter.

In all of them, Belle walked with calm propriety, her face a mask, revealing nothing, as she lifted skirts of silk and velvet to avoid the blood.

Sometimes, she walked alongside Gaston, her mouth frozen in a pleasant smile as he butchered everyone, Ogre or human, who came near him.  Her heart hammered in her chest, her mind screaming that she should run while she had the chance.  But, she couldn’t.  No matter how desperate she was to escape, she could only follow along in his wake.

At the end, she followed him up a to a castle gate.  It looked like the gaping jaws of a hungry beast.  Blood ran from its mouth, making the path sticky and wet, like the tables in the healers’ halls where the surgeons did their gory work. 

Gaston reached it first, then turned to her, smiling.  “You will be my queen,” he said offering her his hand.  “We will be sovereigns over a land far greater than has ever existed.”

Belle, coming up behind him, could see into the castle.  It was an abattoir, a slaughterhouse.  She could see human dead hanging like meat inside.  She could also see the butcher’s knife hidden in Gaston’s other hand.  His eyes glinted the terrible, hungry red she had seen in the Mirror of Souls.  She knew what he would do to her if she followed where he led.

Her perfect smile didn’t break.  She took his hand, as a proper lady should, and let him lead her into the darkness beyond. . . .

If anyone noticed her troubled sleep, they didn’t ask.  Why should they?  Who in the Marchlands wasn’t having nightmares? Why ask the question when everyone knew the answer?

She remembered when Rumplestiltskin came and made his offer—and it was an offer.  This time, no one came and told her how her fate had already been decided.  He told her what his terms were and let her accept or reject them—and all he asked for was her labor, not herself.

The nightmares started again once she returned to Storybrooke, beginning the first night she slept on _The Jolly Roger_.  Only, instead of Gaston, now it was the ship’s captain who offered his human hand in Belle’s dreams, his hook dripping blood.

And she still followed him.  Night after night, smiling, she took his hand and walked to her doom.

When she woke, it seemed those dreams should mean more to her.  She stood in the cabin where she had found Archie, tortured and bleeding and remembered how Hook had held a gun to her head there, ready to kill her— _hungry_ to kill her.  She walked the deck and thought about how he would have done it (or something worse) if Rumple hadn’t come.  When Rumple had lost his power, this was where Hook fought him here, ready for murder.  This was where he had told Rumple he had stolen Milah and the fate she would have at the hands of his crew.

She remembered when Hook had offered her a place on his ship, smiling as falsely as ever Gaston had, telling his usual string of lies—Granny’s beds were wonderfully comfortable, especially compared to a narrow, wooden bunk over three centuries old that would have left her feeling sick and restless even without the constant rolling of the sea.

She’d taken his hand.  She’d smiled and thanked him, following him into the darkness.

This was wrong.  She knew it was wrong. 

But, she could never seem to understand why.

It was only when she saw Rumple that she seemed to shake off the strange weariness that choked off her thoughts.  Then, all her anger came blossoming up.  Even as it poured out of her, there was a small corner of her mind that wondered at it.  Why was she aiming all this at _him?_

For everything else, she was numb.  She thought of Emma, so surprised that Belle was in Storybrooke and that she wasn’t cursed and asleep.  She thought of Hook’s smug amusement that her being on his ship must be causing Rumple pain and of Regina declaring herself darkness-free while the other half of her soul rampaged.

And Zelena.  She thought of Zelena gleefully telling her Regina’s dark half wanted to make love to her husband.  She thought of Rumple clutching at his chest while Zelena smirked and mocked him.

In the Land Without Magic, when Belle exiled Rumple, he had nearly died.  He’d made a deal with Zelena to save his life and, if he broke it, he’d die.  Zelena had said this right in front of her.  She had gloated how Bae died, mocking Rumple with his son’s death.

 _I should care,_ Belle thought.  _I should feel something.  Shouldn’t I?_

But, _what_ should she be feeling?  And why was she having those dreams?  Killian leading her into darkness.  Zelena slaughtering Bae.  Emma’s eyes glowing red as she assured everyone that she was the Savior.  If she tortured an Ogre child, how could she be doing anything wrong?

Through it all, Belle walked calmly in her old gown of yellow silk, pulling back the hem as the Ogre child reached out to her with a bloody hand, smiling calmly and properly as she stepped around Bae’s body and made talked politely with Zelena.

She woke, heart pounding, not knowing why she was afraid. 

 _Rumple,_ she thought.  He was the reason everything had gone wrong.  He was the one who refused to fix what was broken.

And yet. . . .  And yet . . . .

The feeling wouldn’t go away that she was wrong, that there was something more she didn’t (wouldn’t?) understand.

She just didn’t know what.

X

The Shadow listened as the Queen gave her pretty, little speech upon returning to her kingdom (or whatever she called the town).  It growled silently at her lies.  Oh, she was free of her darkness now, was she?  She’d ripped her own soul in two, thrown part of it in the gutter, and that made everything all right, did it?

They all smiled and nodded, even the Queen’s stepdaughter, who should know better, if anyone did.  Hadn’t she once used magic to tear out a piece of her own heart?  She’d taken a potion to make herself forget the pain of a lost love and found it worked all too well.  You couldn’t pick and choose through your own heart.  The only way to forget love was to forget all of it, the good and the bad.  The princess had been quite the little sociopath for a while, there, before she’d remembered herself.

For half her lifetime, the Queen had lived for revenge.  It wasn’t just the crimes she’d committed.  All her thoughts, all her dreams had set their roots in that poisoned ground.  The powers she swore to use to protect the little hamlet were gifts she’d honed on that hate.

Oh, there was such a thing as redemption.  The Shadow knew it.  It was the Queen who didn’t.  Rather than believe she could overcome her past, she tried to pretend it didn’t exist, tried to hide the truth even from herself.

A snatch of music played.

_Now, here's a riddle in a rhyme._ _  
If she's the same, how come she's different now?_

That was the question, wasn’t it?  If she’d torn out her own soul and tossed it on the dung heap, why did she seem the same?  Why weren’t the scars showing?  She’d crushed her own heart.  Why hadn’t she bled?

The Shadow knew.  It wanted to scream the answer to the world, but no one heard it.  Its hints and whispers fell on deaf ears.

_She begins to steal the light  
Confusion throws another mystery._

The Shadow thought of the rose hidden in the Hatter’s home.  _She begins to steal the light._ She’d stolen light from all of them.

 _Leech,_ the Shadow thought.  _Blood-drinking worm._  

But, worse than the Queen was seeing Belle. 

She was back now.  If you could call this her.

No, it was her, weak and drained though she was.  Words from a book drifted through its mind.  _Corn bears its name_   _in the seed in the ground, in the green stalk, in the yellow dried stalk whose leaves whisper riddles to the wind._ Belle was a torn, tattered remnant of herself, but that self still lived, no matter what the Queen had done to her.

Had done to _them_.

_I’ll do whatever it takes.  I’ll pay whatever it costs._

Terrible words.  Fatal words.  Words the Shadow was far too wise to say.

But, it had thought them in its heart, hadn’t it?  And, now, it was paying the price. 

Or had the words even mattered?  The Queen had never been one to wait to be asked before taking what she wanted.  No, all that soul-sucking cannibal wanted was what she lacked.  The only way the Shadow would have been safe would be if it had been as weak and empty as the Queen.

Words from another book drifted through its mind.  _As now he drinks blood trying to replenish his bloodlessness, then he will drink souls, in effort to fill up his soullessness - in vain!_  A phrase from a different source followed.  _All magic comes with a price. . . ._

The Queen thought she could make them pay it for her.  So far, they had.  But, all debts must be balanced, sooner or later.  _And what will you do, O, Queen, when the butcher’s bill finally comes due?_

Seeing Belle, drained and empty of almost all feeling, the thought brought little comfort. 

Then came the horrible announcement.  Even Belle couldn’t hide the despair in her eyes.  A child.  Belle was going to have a child.

And she wanted her husband to have nothing to do with it. 

If the Shadow could weep, it would.

 _This isn’t you, Belle,_ the Shadow raged.  _Seeing the truth and having the courage to act on it no matter what others say, that’s your gift.  It can’t all be gone, can it?  There must be something left inside you, if you just listen._

Instead, it saw Belle smiling at Hook, thanking the pirate for his help while he told her to her face he was doing this to hurt her husband.  It saw her accepting the Queen’s platitudes and the Savior’s empty claims of friendship.

The Shadow thought of poems, songs, bits of warning.  It did all it could to send them out.

 _Times are changing, someone's losing control._  
_Steal the future, now, or nothing at all._

It knew Belle had heard that one.  It saw her pause as she walked down the street, frowning as she heard the song play.  The Shadow, lurking in the pawn shop window, felt a surge of hope.  _Yes, Belle, you see it, don’t you?  You’re losing control.  Of yourself.  Of everything.  You’re letting the future be stolen.  Your future.  Your child’s. Please, you have to see it._

But, Belle only shook her head and moved on.  Only the Hatter’s child seemed to catch a hint of truth in the glass.  But, by the time she came to look, the Shadow had already moved on.

Then, the little doctor, the man from the Land of Untold Stories, came to see her. 

The Shadow had less substance than the smallest breeze, but it felt the hair stand up on the back of its nonexistent neck.  It searched, trying to find something to send out a warning to Belle as she fixed tea and listened to lies.

_Every danger is a stranger to trust._ _  
The cost will make it roll into dust._

But, Belle didn’t understand.

 _He smells of blood,_ the Shadow whispered as Belle filled his cup.  _Belle, you know his story, how it’s told in this world.  The good doctor committed crimes in his youth and stopped for fear of being caught.  He swallowed respectability till he choked on it.  So, he made a mask and called it “Hide.” But, the doctor was always the true monster. The rest was a lie to let his darkness free._

But, Belle wouldn’t— _couldn’t—_ see, even as the mask slipped and the true man began to peer out.

 _His eyes,_ the Shadow said as the doctor spoke of a dead women, his gaze flicking quickly, calculatingly to Belle.  _Can’t you see the hunger in his eyes?_

Could she?  Had she?  The Shadow watched Belle reach for a shell holding a small, frail spell.

 _Not him!_ the Shadow stormed.  _What can_ he _do?  Call Rumplestiltskin!  Call—Call—_

It saw the answer.  It _knew_ the answer.

 _Call_ **me _,_** it screamed.  _Summon me!  I belong to you, Belle!  I am everything that has been stolen from you!  Let me out of this cage!  Take back what’s yours!_

But, she didn’t.  She couldn’t hear it.  Instead, Belle struck out with broken shell against the madman.  Then, she turned and ran.

The Shadow screamed again, unheard.  Across the town, radios played static and other devices glitched and changed songs.  But, only for a moment.  Dials were turned.  Buttons were pushed.  The Shadow’s cries were turned aside. The same old songs continued to play.

The doctor struggled up, murder in his eye.  The Shadow lashed out at its glass cage, pounding against it, helpless.  Belle had panicked, running blind.  She’d had the advantage and she’d lost it, losing her only weapon and giving her enemy time to recover.

The doctor grabbed the shell at his neck.  The Shadow hoped for a moment it was buried in a major artery, that the doctor would bleed out when he pulled it loose.  Instead, there was just a little splattering of blood, quickly hidden as he pushed his cravat over the wound.  “I didn't . . . come . . . all this way . . . to stop . . . now,” he growled, tossing the shell aside.

Blood splattered onto the glass.

The Shadow lifted its ghost hands again, trying to strike out, to reach him in time. 

_Whatever it takes._

The window shattered into a thousand pieces. 

For one heartbeat, the Shadow was every shard of glass and every broken, jagged edge.

And then it was nothing. 

X

Belle heard the scream.  For a heartbeat, she was back in the Marchlands, hearing the shrieks of the dying as the Ogres advanced.  The smell of blood was everywhere ( _the touch of blood, warm and damp against her skin_.  _She was buried inside a living heart that struggled to go on beating as it choked on her and went still_ ).  She shook her head, trying to shake the memories ( _madness?_ ) away.  She didn’t stop or look back.

X

Shakily, the Shadow pulled itself up, not sure for a moment where it was.  Then, it saw the dead man beneath it.  He’d been cut to ribbons, drenching the Shadow with his blood.  Yet, his face was unmarked.  _A boyish face_ , it thought.  _Almost innocent._

Something else came to mind, a name.

 _Jekyll._  

It stepped back unsteadily, trying to find its balance.  _Of course, it’s hard,_ it thought.  _How long has it been since I stood on my own two feet?_

Had it ever?

It heard voices arguing.  _Rumplestiltskin and Belle,_ it thought, sighing.  _Of course._ It stumbled towards the stairs, but Rumplestiltskin was already coming down.  He frowned at the bloody mess before looking at the shattered window.  The Shadow shifted guiltily. 

“What did you do?” Belle said, angry, accusing.

The Shadow opened its mouth to answer, but Rumplestiltskin spoke first.  “I didn’t do anything.”

“You killed him!”

“I would have,” he said.  “Gladly.  But, someone beat me to it.”

 _That would be me,_ the Shadow said.  Or tried to say.  It felt dizzy, exhausted.  It had used everything it had to—to—

It had killed a man. 

It had broken free.

How?

Distantly, it heard Rumplestiltskin and Belle continuing to argue.  It seemed to see Rumplestiltskin lifting his hand, summoning magic.

Maybe he was trying to get rid of whatever danger might be left in the room.  Maybe he was only trying to discover the truth.  The Shadow only knew that everything was becoming distant and far away.  The ship faded, like watercolors in the rain.

When the Shadow came to itself ( _seconds later? Hours? Days?_ ), it stood in the streets of Storybrooke.  A familiar face was walking past.

A name.  The Shadow remembered a name.  “Dr. Whale?” it said, reaching out.  “What’s happened?  How—”

The man walked past, not stopping.

“Marco?” it said as the woodcarver went by. 

“Ava, Nicholas—” it tried to call out to the twins.

No one looked.  No one heard.  The Shadow stumbled down the street, then gasped as it finally saw a woman looking at it.  The woman was small, about Belle’s height, wearing skinny jeans and a sleeveless shirt.  She even looked like Belle, though her hair was a blond that was almost white.  Or what the Shadow could see of it was.  The color was nearly hidden away beneath streaks of blood.  The woman was covered with it.

But, her eyes, the same, piercing blue of Belle’s, were the only ones that met the Shadow’s and didn’t turn away. 

 _Who are you?_ The Shadow tried to ask.  It knew everyone in Storybrooke, but this face, familiar as it was, was a stranger’s.  _She looks like she escaped a slaughterhouse._

As the Shadow reached out to her, she woman reached for it.  There was something in the gesture, the familiarity of it, that told the Shadow the truth.  A moment later, it confirmed it.  As their hands met, it didn’t feel human flesh but the cold, smooth face of a mirror.

The Shadow looked into its own eyes and stepped into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs in this one are from Metropolis (the 1984 rock version of a silent film), "Here She Comes" by Bonnie Tyler and "Destruction" by Loverboy. The title comes from "On Your Own," from the same movie, by Billy Squier.
> 
> The Shadow wasn't deliberately referencing the song "Call Me" when it told Belle to do that, but the author appreciated it.
> 
> The first book quote is from "The Riddle-Master of Hed" (great book) by Patricia McKillip. The second is from "The Darkangel" by Meredith Ann Pierce.


	8. The Mask Behind the Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Shadow thinks about what happened and what it still needs to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late. I try to aim for once a week but keep missing.

Belle.

She was Belle.

Or not Belle.  A part of Belle.  A splinter of her soul.  No, she was even less than that.

Or she should have been.  But, Regina hadn’t had a chance to _feed_ on her since going to Camelot.  The spell the Queen had set up was still active, but the power—substance—whatever she should call herself—had no place to go.  It congealed, and she had gone from being a stray collection of feelings and wisps of strength into something alive.  Or almost alive.

After Rumple was freed, when she learned Regina had the dagger, she’d gone to her to demand it back— _demand_ , not ask, not _beg_ or grovel. 

She’d confronted the Queen in her office, all ice-white and darkness.  Regina had been as calm and unmoving as stone.  The memory burned though her mind (her mind? Belle’s mind?) of the look in Rumple’s eyes when Zelena told him to kill her.  When someone held the dagger, he couldn’t call his soul his own.  No one— _no one—_ had the right to do that, not to Rumple, not to anyone.

She’d laid out her arguments, keeping a grip on her anger but letting it show, letting her majesty know how she felt, how _wrong_ this was.  And Regina had agreed to give it back. 

For a price. . . .

Regina wasn’t Rumple.  She didn’t bargain.  She didn’t offer a deal with a price you might not appreciate till later.  After all, she was a queen.  Why should she ask when she could just reach out and take what she wanted?

Belle hadn’t understood when it happened.  The Belle-Who-Had-Been-the-Shadow wasn’t sure her other self remembered even now. 

Shadow Belle didn’t think she could ever forget.

The Queen had held the dagger, frowning down at it.  “You’re right,” she’d said.  “I shouldn’t have this.  It’s too big a temptation.” An odd note crept into her voice. “It takes a _strong_ soul to deal with this kind of power.” Then, she had looked at Belle speculatively, eyes hungry.

It was so clear, now, what Regina had meant.  But, she hadn’t seen it.  Oh, she’d felt the first pricklings of fear.  She’d felt the same wave of danger she’d had when she knew Lumiere was lying to them.

But, she hadn’t known, not really, any more than she’d known the price Baelfire would pay when he reached out his hand to turn the key and bring his father back.  She hadn’t understood anything till Regina reached into her chest and tore out her heart.

Should she have seen it? the Shadow (or was she Belle?) wondered.  Regina talked so much about wanting to be better.  In some ways, she even tried.  But, back when she thought Marian had lived, the Queen had never been grateful, not once, that chance or fate had reached out its hands and spared one of her victims. 

Belle (or was she the Shadow?) tried to imagine what it must be like to carry as heavy burden of deaths as Regina did and to suddenly find that terrible weight lightened by a life—not just any life but the life she knew must mean more than anything to the man she loved. 

If a miracle gave Baelfire back to Rumple, even if it cost Belle her place in Rumple’s life, could she possibly be angry at such a gift?

Regina, washed clean of Marian’s blood, could only curse the universe that never gave her what she truly wanted.

And yet, only hours before, she’d used white magic to stop Zelena. 

Belle’s other self knew this but never seemed to consider the implications.  If anything, she used it as a club on her husband, telling him he _must_ be able to turn his darkness to light—and blaming him when he failed.

Magic came from many things.  Rumple’s was rooted in his curse.  The fairies gathered diamond dust.  For a human witch, like Regina, it blossomed in her heart; and Regina’s was streaked with darkness.  It might be human in a way Rumple’s wasn’t, but the pure light needed to stop Zelena wasn’t there _.  So, where had that light come from?_

Belle wasn’t the only Regina’s only victim. 

She remembered what Regina had said as she’d taken her heart.  She’d been smiling.  “I’m not what I used to be.  Don’t worry.   I’ll give it right back.  But, you can see how unfair it is, can’t you Belle?  No matter what I do, no matter how I change, there’s always something standing between me and my happiness.”  She put Belle’s heart down on her desk and waved her hands.  A small mirror appeared   

Of course, it did.  The Queen liked working with mirrors.

“Remember when you were my prisoner?  Locked up for years, in chains, and, still, nothing could break you.  When Hook came, he told you lies about Rumple and offered you your freedom in return for just a little bit of help.  You didn’t even hesitate before turning him down.  You weren’t even tempted, not for a second.”  She brought out a large, silver pin, nearly five inches long. 

“You understand how wrong it is, don’t you?  People like you, you’re just born that way, strong where others are weak.  You don’t even need it, not now.  You have everything you want.  Your true love is alive.  He _came back from the dead._   You don’t _need_ this.  And I do.”  And she drove the pin into Belle’s heart.

The drop of blood fell onto the mirror.  Belle remembered Regina looking down at it, smiling.  “It’s only fair,” she said as the blood hit the glass. 

And that was the last, clear thing Shadow-Belle remembered for a long time.

There were images, feelings.  She knew how the blood and mirror had joined and melded together, twisting into the form of a sapphire rose.  She knew how Regina had set it in her crypt, guarded by spells a crystal case, and how she had lifted the dome and taken out the flower when she needed to feed.

To feed.  That was how Shadow-Belle thought of it.  Doubtless, Regina had some nicer phrase.  What had she said, after all?  Belle didn’t _need_ this.

Of course not.  Belle had only been imprisoned for years, first in Regina’s tower and then, stripped of even her false memories, trapped for twenty-eight years in a dark cell (the Shadow had caught a glimpse of the same cell after Zelena had broken free of it.  The Queen had added lights and a mattress with blankets when she put her sister there).  She had had her own father try to destroy her, madmen try to kill her, been shot in the back, stripped of her memories again, given a false life that made her into a weapon against the man she loved, only to have him go to what he thought was his death while leaving her behind (Rumple had thought he was leaving her in safety, having no way to know his own son’s foster-brothers would show up in his shop waving guns).

Then, Rumple had died.

And come back, insane and tortured and ordered to kill her with his son’s life hanging by a thread—a thread that had finally snapped.

Oh, no, what could Belle possibly have needed strength and loyalty to get through?

Regina had sounded so much like Snow.  What was it the princess said?  Madness, torture, death, everything Rumple suffered, it was nothing that couldn’t be undone. 

How could she say that?  How could she even think it?  Belle had seen Snow’s pain when she talked about Emma growing up without her.  She knew the pain of a parent who’d lost a child.  She knew what it was to know her child had suffered and yet be unable to set it right.  How could she look at a man, who had given up his sanity and freedom to save his son, and dismiss it?  A man who, despite all his sacrifices, had seen his son die and been helpless to stop it?

Regina had wanted to bury her heart after losing Henry, unable to bear losing the one thing she still loved.  She’d changed her mind after speaking to Snow White privately in the woods, where no one could hear what was said or see what she did.  Had she stolen from her, too? 

Her and Charming, the Shadow guessed.  The prince, like his wife, had become less and less like the man he used to be.  They’d been brave leaders, once, famed for their justice and mercy. 

Now?  The Dwarves had been Snow’s most loyal friends when she fled Regina.  They had guarded her at the risk of their lives. They became her royal guard. Doc had brought her firstborn child into the world.  Yet, they hadn’t spared a thought when one of them was transformed, turned into a tree, barely caring when they heard he’d been freed.

As for Emma, the woman who’d once gone head to head with Rumplestiltskin to save the child of a teenage mother she barely knew, couldn’t be bothered to help Belle or her unborn child.  She’d been willing to leave them in the Underworld and had stopped Rumplestiltskin twice in his efforts to save them.

_Emma Swan, who is eating your heart?_

A snatch of music went through her mind. 

_Answers can change the question line_

_Every time._

Lacey, the false self the Queen had given her, had the most encyclopedic memory of songs from this world.  Mixed with Belle’s knowledge of books and old ballads, it had given her a way to speak when she had lost her own words.  Now, she thought through them, looking for answers—for anything that would help.

More of the song played in her memory.

 _How does is feel to lose control?_  
Feels like hell.  
So who's a friend and who's a foe?  
Can we tell? 

_It’s easy being wise_

_After the fact. . . ._

Everything was falling apart, and she didn’t know how to set it right.  The others the Queen had taken needed to be set free.  Rumple needed to know what was really happening.  Belle needed to be stopped before she did something irrevocable.

And she needed to be whole.  She’d been ripped in two and, somehow, she needed to be sewn back together.

Lacey had known a song about that, too.  Of course, she did.

 _For every heart there burns a flame_ __  
To light the soul and make you one again  
  
No answers, no solutions.  Only an unremitting determination.

 _A restless heart who needs a friend_ __  
To free my soul and make me one again  
Within my heart I found a voice  
I'll have my say

 _I’ll have my say,_ she repeated to herself.  She would make herself heard.  She would raise her voice and give warning.

She just had to find out how. __  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's songs are both from the rock music version of Metropolis (again). What's Going On? by Adam Ant and On Your Own by Billy Squier. The title is from the first line of What's Going On.


	9. The Sound of Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry talks to his grandfather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning to Regina fans: She came out pretty harsh in this chapter.

Henry took a deep breath.  _Heroes are brave_ , he reminded himself, even though he wasn’t sure he was a hero anymore—or that he wanted to be one—and opened the door to the pawn shop, going in.

His grandfather was standing behind the counter a pile of thick books with serious-looking, dark covers in front of him.  Gold tensed slightly as he heard the bell with the wary look of a man ready for trouble.  When he saw Henry, his eyes widened slightly with surprise, though the wariness didn’t go away. 

In a flat, cold voice, he said, “Henry, is there something I can help you with?” He didn’t say _Why else would you be here?_ Not that he had to.

Henry winced.  “Mr. Go—” he started before realizing what he was saying.  “Gran—” He stopped again, remembering the last time he’d treated—no, _pretended_ to treat—his grandfather as family. 

And his grandfather had known all along.  Henry hadn’t realized it at the time, but his mom had told him later, when Mr. Gold was exiled. 

Henry had been reeling from the news.  Belle, his grandfather’s true love, had sent him away.  But, Regina brushed that aside, explaining everything matter-of-factly.  “You know what he’s like, Henry.  I may have changed, but he hasn’t.  He’s the same, cold bastard he always was.” 

Henry had started to protest, but she cut him off.  “Did you think he had because he was nice to you at the shop?  He knew all along you were just looking for information about the author.  He told me so before he left.  He was just playing you, Henry.”

Henry had been shocked, then angry.  Everything they’d talked about, the time they’d spent together, it had all been a lie.

Or that’s what he’d told himself.  It wasn’t till after the fight with Grace, when he’d been going back over everything that happened and telling himself he _had so_ been right, that the obvious hit him.  He’d been making a list of what he’d done and what Gold had done, and saw it staring him right in the face.  Henry had been the liar, not Gold. 

And that’s why he’d been so angry, wasn’t it?  There was nothing a liar hated more than being caught out.

Worse, he remembered all the times his moms lied to him.  They’d said the same things Henry had.  They were just trying to protect him.  They were just trying to help. 

And Henry had been just trying to help his mom.  He had been just trying to keep Storybrooke safe. 

He was just trying to make all the decisions and cut other people out of it for their own good.

And, like Grace said, he’d been doing a pretty lousy job of it.  He could have gotten people killed.  He’d nearly gotten Belle killed.   

When had he started being like this?  He wished he could say it was when his grandfather was exiled.  Everyone—his moms, his other grandparents, and all their friends—had had nothing good to say about Mr. Gold after that happened.  It wouldn’t be _all right_ if that was when Henry had started thinking of his grandfather as nothing but a fairy tale villain—this world’s idea of one, with no feelings or concerns or anything else that mattered—but it wouldn’t be as bad. 

But, it hadn’t been.  He remembered the lies he’d told when he’d come to the store months ago.  Mr. Gold hadn’t been a person to him then, he hadn’t been his grandfather, he hadn’t been somebody whose son had died just a few weeks ago.  He’d just been a monster, the Dark One, the evil villain that the clever hero tricked.

New York, Henry thought.  It had been after New York.  He’d spent a year living as a completely different kid.  He’d come to his father’s funeral and felt lost and confused.  After all the things she’d said about his dad over the years, she was acting like she’d lost half of herself.  She’d been scared and trying not to fall apart, and Henry hadn’t had a clue why.

Then, he got his memory back.  He knew who his father was, understood how he’d been murdered, and that Zelena was trying to murder him and everyone else.  Worse, she was trying to erase them so they’d never been. 

Things had moved fast.  He’d barely had time to think about how he’d stood by his father’s grave, not really caring that he was gone and embarrassed in case anyone figured that out.  When his memory came back, he knew Mr. Gold was his grandfather, but he’d thought he was still dead.  No one had told him otherwise, not till he heard someone say something about Rumplestiltskin helping Zelena. 

He’d asked Snow.  Distracted by the threats to her daughter and soon-to-be-born son, she’d barely bothered with an explanation.  _He wasn’t dead, not really,_ that’s what she’d said.  It was a long story, and she’d tell him later.  For now, the only thing he needed to know was that Zelena had the dagger. 

 _Not that he might not help her anyway,_ Regina had said sourly.  _He always liked her better than me._

Snow’s later never came, but Henry picked up bits and pieces.  He just hadn’t thought about it—he hadn’t wanted to think about it.  It was so much easier not to.

Like it was easier not think how he’d been in the same town as his dad—he’d been here while his father was _dying—_ and he hadn’t known.  It had been his last chance to ever see him alive, and he hadn’t done anything about it.  When he found out he’d lost that chance forever . . . he hadn’t cared.

And, when he did remember . . . it was easier pretending it still didn’t matter.  When it got to be too much, Henry just pretended to be the kid he’d believed he was for a whole year, the one from New York who’d grown up knowing his dad was out of the picture and that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Forgetting about his grandfather was harder.  After all, he was still alive and right there, in Storybrooke.  But, it was easier if Henry believed the things everyone said.  Gold didn’t care about anyone but himself.  He probably would have helped Zelena anyway.  He’d let Henry’s dad die (or he hadn’t stopped it.  Same thing).  All he wanted was power.

It had been easier.  And wrong.  Now, Henry looked at his grandfather, not sure where to begin.

Maybe at the beginning.  “Can I still call you Grandpa?” 

“I didn’t think you cared to,” his grandfather said.  His eyes narrowed.  “Or was there something you wanted?” 

Henry flinched at his bitterness.  “I—I wanted to say I’m sorry.  For lying when I asked for a job.  For taking the crystal and hurting Belle.  For everything.”

Gold looked at Henry like a critic rating an actor’s performance.  “And what brings on this burst of repentance?  Surely, no one’s been criticizing your dealings with me.”

 _Yeah, they have._ But, Henry wasn’t sure how to explain Grace’s part in all this.  He’d tried to talk to Violet (leaving Grace out).  That was when he realized the Dark One was just another monster in the stories they told in Camelot, like dragons and Ogres.  He’d thought it would be OK because she’d understood about his mom being the Dark One.  Only she hadn’t, not really.  Talking to her, Henry realized Violet thought what had happened to his mom was some curse Mr. Gold had put on her. 

He’d tried to explain that wasn’t so, his mom had been cursed the same way Mr. Gold was.  It wasn’t something he’d done.  The stuff she did as the Dark One was stuff _she_ ’d done, not Gold.  “Including when she took your heart,” Henry said.

He’d had to say it.  It was the worst thing his mom had done when she was cursed, taking Violet’s heart and making her say and do what she told her to, just like a puppet.  Right then, he didn’t care if it made Violet hate his mom—or hate him.  If she’d been blaming Mr. Gold for that, it was wrong.  It had been Emma (and the curse) from start to finish.

What happened was worse than that.  Violet didn’t hate him, she just looked at him blankly.  “What are you talking about?” 

When Henry tried to explain, she’d laughed.  “That never happened.”  She sobered at Henry’s flabbergasted look.  “I’m sorry.  Did I say something awful back in Camelot?  Did you think—I was just getting to know you, then, Henry.  Whatever it was, I didn’t mean it like that.”

And she believed it.  She didn’t remember anything that had happened.  Someone had taken her memories.

Henry knew the dreamcatcher with that memory had been destroyed.  He’d seen it go up in flames himself.  He didn’t _think_ Emma would take the memories back from Violet.  He didn’t think she even could, not unless she was putting more dreamcatchers together. 

But, Regina might.  To help Henry.  To keep him safe.

Or somebody else might have.  Like Zelena.  She might do it to get on Regina’s good side.  Or because she thought it was funny.  Or for any of the crazy reasons Zelena did anything. 

Or the Blue Fairy might if she thought it was better some people forgot about Emma being the Dark One.  Or Astrid might just goofing up a spell. Or. . . .

Well, there were a lot of people.  This was Storybrooke.  But, Henry didn’t know how to say all that to Gold.

“I went to Zelena’s farmhouse,” he said instead.  “I—I found her storm cellar.”  He looked his grandfather in the eye.  This hurt to say.  This hurt to _think._ “There’s a cage in it.  With a spinning wheel.”

 _Please,_ Henry thought, _tell me I’m wrong.  Tell me I’m still the stupid kid who stole the crystal, the one who doesn’t understand anything._

Instead, his grandfather only looked puzzled.  “Is that still there?  I’m surprised someone hasn’t gotten rid of it.”

“Is that—were you—did—did Zelena—” He couldn’t say it.  He couldn’t even think it.

“Yes,” Gold said coldly, impatience creeping into his voice. “It’s where she kept me while she had the dagger.”

Henry felt like he’d been punched.  “Do my moms know?  Do my grandparents—my other grandparents?”

Gold’s face softened slightly.  “I know you expect them to be honest with you, Henry.  And they are, for the most part.  But, there are some things you don’t share with a child.  And you are still a child.  I know you don’t want to hear that, but it’s true.  All of us, we still want to protect you.”

It took Henry a moment to process that his grandfather was saying thought Henry would be angry because they hadn’t told him stuff, like he’d feel people were lying to him (again).  But, that wasn’t it at all.

_Not that he might not help Zelena anyway._

_It’s nothing that can’t be undone._

_He’s the same, cold bastard he always was._

They knew.  The whole time, they knew, and they acted like it didn’t matter.  His moms told him to be nice to his Auntie Zelena, that she wasn’t the same as the woman who’d held a knife to his throat only . . . what was it?  Six months ago?

“How did my dad die?” Henry asked.

That surprised Gold.  “Didn’t your family tell you?” They’d talked a bit about his dad while Henry worked here; but Henry had kept to safe questions, things about his dad as a kid, stuff about growing up in the Front Lands.  The hard questions, how Rumplestiltskin had lost his father, why Neal was sometimes so mad at him, those he steered away from.

This—this was hard.  “I didn’t remember when he died,” Henry said.  Then, he realized he was talking about things that happened after Gold defeated Pan.  “Did you know about that?  When my mom destroyed the curse, she gave me and Emma memories before we left.  We thought we’d always been together.  I didn’t remember anything about Storybrooke or magic.” 

Oh, but Mr. Gold had known.  Henry had asked him to make him forget all the crazy, magic stuff and just leave him with those memories again.  But, Mr. Gold wouldn’t do it. 

_It’s bearing your regrets that makes you learn, that makes you strong._

It had been easier not to think about that when he was trying to trick his grandfather.  It had been _much_ easier not to think about it when everyone was telling him awful he was, how glad they were that he was gone.

But, Henry wasn’t ready to talk about that, not yet.  He wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about this but he’d already started. 

He tried again.  “No one was talking to me about magic, then.  After, they just said. . . .” _My mom said you let him die._

There was no way he could say that to Gold, even if he still believed it.  “I can’t ask them.  Please, you were there, weren’t you?  I . . . I need to know.”

Gold’s face was unreadable.  Henry didn’t know if he believed him or not (he had plenty of reason not to, _plenty_ of reason), but he gave a slight nod. “Very well,” he said neutrally. “I suppose you’ve the right to know.

“I died,” he said, cold and impersonal.  An edge of sarcasm, hard and bitter, crept in. “I suppose you knew that?”

Henry nodded meekly, not blaming his grandfather for questioning him  _He wasn’t really dead,_ that’s what his mom had said, and Henry had wanted to believe her.  He’d seen him die stopping Pan, driving his dagger through both their hearts.  Easier to think that was another trick than to think about what it really meant.

But, Gold’s blood had only been able to open up the doorway to the Underworld because he’d returned from the dead.  Before they arrived, he’d warned them all what the Underworld would be like—because he’d been there before.

“I thought dead was dead,” Henry said. “How did you come back?”

“Do you remember when Hook opened up the way for the Dark Ones to return?  And how they marked the living they were going to trade places with?”

“But—you didn’t—you wouldn’t—”

“I was dead,” Gold said.  “There was nothing I could do.  But, my curse bound me to this life.  Under the right circumstances, I could be returned.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I couldn’t mark anyone, Henry.  But, if someone could be tricked into marking themselves, into branding themselves with the Mark of the Dark One at Vault where each of us was reborn when we were first cursed, then the last Dark One to die would be brought back.  Zelena tricked your father into doing that.  He was trying to bring me back,” he said bitterly.  “He didn’t know it would cost him his life.”

In the moments before his grandfather had died, he’d spoken briefly to Neal—Bae, he’d called him—telling him it was still possible for him to have happiness, just not with him.  Although, he hadn’t said anything to Henry, his eyes had flickered to him for just a moment while he spoke to Neal. 

Henry hadn’t understood then.  Too much was going on.  His grandfather was dead.  Storybrooke was ending.  He’d lost his mom, his memories, everything but Emma.

After . . . it was so much easier not to think about.  Until Grace made him.

His grandfather had looked at Henry when he told his dad to find his happy ending.  He wanted his son to have a chance to be Henry’s father.  That’s what happiness meant to him.

Except. . . .  “My dad died in Storybrooke.  Not the Enchanted Forest.” Or, that’s what everyone said.  They’d had a _funeral_ for him.  That hadn’t all been a lie.

Had it? 

“The spell called for a life for a life,” Gold said.  “But, I could share mine with Bae.  I . . . drew him into me.  With magic,” he added, as if Henry might need that part explained.  He smiled with grim amusement.  “You might say we were the opposite of Jekyll and Hyde.  Two men sharing one body instead of one divided into two.”

“That sounds confusing.” _Painful._

“Maddening,” Gold said.  “But, not for Bae,” he added hastily.  “I was able to spare him the worst of it.  He slept mostly and, when he didn’t. . . .  I was able to shield him from most of the confusion.”

Shield Bae.  He didn’t say anything about shielding himself.  He never said anything about shielding himself. But, if he’d been protecting him. . . . “Then, how did he die?”

Gold swallowed.  “A mistake.  When we came to this world, Bae and I lost our memories of the past year along with everyone else.  He . . . didn’t know what had happened.  The dagger didn’t have any power over him, and he was able to escape.” 

Henry thought of the cage Zelena had kept Gold in and wondered how he’d gotten out.  But, hadn’t Emma said his dad was the one who taught her to pick locks?

“When he found your mother, he didn’t even know I was inside him.  When he did . . . he thought I would be able to help where he couldn’t.” His voice was thick with bitter irony.  The dagger controlled his grandfather completely.  His dad had been the only protection he had.

Gold went on anxiously, as if he were trying to defend Neal’s mistake.  “I wasn’t sane then, not truly.  He thought, if he were gone, I would be able to explain the danger, to help.  He convinced your mother to use her magic and pull him free.  I . . . I couldn’t pull him back.  He died and I couldn’t save him.”  The familiar mask of Mr. Gold settled back over his features.  He turned cold eyes on his grandson.  “Does that answer your question?”

Henry nodded, not knowing what else to say.  _I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry._ He remembered the horrible, awful lie he’d told when he came to work here:  _I want to know about my father._ Anything he could say now felt empty, meaningless.

But, he tried.  There was still one thing more he could say. 

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Henry said.

“Haven’t I?”

“Grandpa.  Is it—is it all right if I call you Grandpa?”

Gold shrugged.  “Call me whatever you wish, Henry.  I don’t suppose it really matters.”

Gold gathered up the books on his counter and began putting them away, turning his back to Henry.  Henry stood there a few moments, hoping Gold would say something more, wishing he knew what to say to him.  In the end, as the silence stretched, he turned and left.

There wasn’t anything else he could say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is about silence, about the things Henry (and a lot of other people) haven't wanted to acknowledge and that Henry, now that he wants to acknowledge them, doesn't know how to talk about. So, this is the chapter where the song that describes it isn't thought of and isn't heard.
> 
> I have always liked Regina better as a villain or a gray, sometimes-ally than as a hero. From her POV in this, she isn't lying about Gold, she's falling back into her bad habit of only seeing her own problems. The fear of losing a son is also something that strikes a bit too close to home for her, so she's dismissing another's loss rather than acknowledging it.


	10. Scars to Your Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Shadow watches Rumplestiltskin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, this is not the chapter I intended to write. Sigh. Could someone, please, explain this to the story fairies who keep bringing me the wrong stuff?

After Henry left, Rumplestiltskin got out another set of law books to replace the ones he’d put away and continued to make notes.  A year and a half ago, he might have gone to his spinning wheel but. . . .  He looked at the wheel gathering dust in the corner and could feel memories he did not want to let out of the darkness he’d confined them to trying to break free into the light of day.

He turned back to the law books.  They weren’t quite as good as his wheel had once been, but the point of the law was to deal calmly and clear-headedly with even the most painful subjects.  It reduced nightmares to dry logic, terror to scratchings of ink, without passion or pain.

He had made a list of laws and rulings under parental abduction.  There were the steps that could be taken to prevent it and steps to be taken after it occurred.  He made references to case law and precedents. 

The law favored him.  Beyond the town line, he would have been able to tell Belle, simply and without emotion, that she couldn’t take his child from him. 

And he couldn’t take her child from her.  Nor did he want to, something he didn’t think she understood.

And yet, since this began, Belle had threatened to take their child and never let him come near, to give the babe to total strangers, and worse.  He couldn’t let her harm the child, either.

He would never take Belle’s child from her, he told himself again.  Never.  He would protect that child with his life, but taking him from Belle would rip out both their hearts.

Beyond the town line, there were remedies.  Limited custody, supervised visitation, it didn’t have to be an all or nothing game.  Maybe he could have shown her that, shown her that he wanted nothing more than to be part of their son’s life even if he accepted that she would no longer be part of his. 

He went back to his carefully made lists.  _Protecting Against Parental Abduction—Step One: Contact local authorities._

He smiled grimly over that one and continued to make notes.

X

He couldn’t hear her.  The Shadow thought he might, now she was free.  The shop was silent.  There was no music she could speak through here. As for the books he had open, she’d never studied law in this world.  Even when, peering over his shoulder, she did find words in his books, they were dry and empty.  They couldn’t hold her need.

At least, he couldn’t see her.  Maybe it was because of how she had broken free, but she was covered with blood.  Her hair was a mix of ghost white and clotted reds.  Even the Dark One, always careful and clever, might shoot first and ask questions later if he saw her.

She stood, monstrous and invisible, as Rumple quietly, uselessly made notes.  It was ironic.  The law of this world protected her child.  But, no one except Rumplestiltskin seemed to even remember it existed. He asked so little of it, to see his son, to hold him in his arms.  What horrible crime was there in that?

But, the other Belle (the real Belle?) couldn’t see it.  The Shadow understood.  Belle had fears—terrible fears—and she had nothing left to fight them.  Courage, loyalty, the determined hope that had pulled her through the Ogre Wars when all reasoned hope was gone, they had been drained away from her till nothing was left.  Nothing but a shadow who couldn’t give back what she had taken.

She thought back to the day Belle had met Rumple at the well.  She didn’t know if the memory were her own (were any of her memories her own?), something she had gleaned spying in a glint of metal, or if the memory was another thing drained away from Belle. 

Either way, she knew how it had been. Belle had started out towards the well, not knowing if she would ever see Rumple again, fear and the ragged scraps of hope still left waging a war inside her heart.

Fear had eaten away at her till even the ghost of hope was burned and gone.  When she saw Rumple alive, despite everything her heart had been telling her, her fears had been driven out, like night fleeing the rising sun.

Leaving her empty.  Broken.

Fear is painful.  But, that aching _emptiness,_ without hope, without light or dark, was a thousand times worse.

Not that her other self had said that, not that she’d understood it.  She only knew that she saw the man she loved alive against all odds, a man who had become everything she had ever asked him to be—and the pain she felt inside her was too much to bear.

She’d fled, running beyond the borders of Storybrooke, beyond magic.

And, beyond the reach of Regina’s magic, her heart began to return. 

The Shadow could see her in her mind’s eye (her memory?  Belle’s memory?), picking up the phone when it rang, seeing Henry’s name.  She would have hesitated, fear rising up just as dying sparks of hope had hours before (they had gotten her to the well, the Shadow thought.  Even if they didn’t have the strength to do more, Belle had gotten to the well and waited when any sensible person most know Rumple had been going to his death.  That dying hope was strong enough to get her there and make her wait for what she knew couldn’t happen).

Instead, she’d picked it up.  She’d listened to what Henry said.  Hope, rich and heady, a feast set before someone almost dead of starvation, had flowed through her.  She’d come back, full of life, full of love.

Back to the spell waiting to suck all those things out of her.

They hadn’t lasted long.  The Shadow supposed she should be impressed it had lasted as long as it did.  It survived Rumple leaving her for the Underworld and her own journey following him.  It survived learning her child had been sold to the Lord of the Dead and even learning that the price of saving it was destroying another’s soul.

It was only when she paid that price herself to save her husband and learned that her son was still not saved that the last spark had died out inside her.

Whatever was left of love in Belle after that turned bitter and angry.  She couldn’t even feel the fear she should for her husband’s enemies (they were Belle’s enemies, too.  Or had she forgotten that?).  The only feelings she had left were for Rumplestiltskin and their child, a mix of terror and rage.

The Shadow remembered a bit of old doggerel.  How had it gone?

_Love makes you crazy._

_Love makes you scared._

Even now, she couldn’t find her own words.  She had to steal them from others.  The Shadow didn’t think that was another bit of cruelty from Regina, although it came to the same thing.  Speech was just one of the things Regina hadn’t bothered to steal from Belle.

Watching Rumplestiltskin as he bent over his notes, outlining hopeless plans to protect their child (but, _was_ there hope somewhere inside him?  The determined hope that stands against monsters when all reasoned hope is gone?) she wanted to tell Rumplestiltskin she loved him, that she would never hurt him, never turn against him even if it seemed she had.  She reached out an invisible hand (still stained with blood from when she’d broken free) and stroked his cheek.

He made another note about visitation laws.  Then, he put down the pen and looked around the room wearily.

 _I love you._ The Shadow wanted to say the words, but they were too much hers.  Try as she might to think of songs and poems that said them—there were thousands!—she could find no other voice to say it in but her own. 

Instead, she reached out to him, holding him tight.  She thought—she hoped—she felt a little of the tension go out of him.

There were words that came to her.  Not her love.  She couldn’t speak of her love.  But, she found comfort.  Softly, she whispered the words of a song in his ear.

 _There's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark_  
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are  
And you don't have to change a thing  
The world could change its heart  
No scars to your beautiful

She traced the lines of his face, willing him to hear her, willing him to know she was there, that she loved him and always would.

Sighing, Rumplestiltskin picked up his pen and went back to his notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The long poem Shadow Belle whispers is from the song "Scars to Your Beautiful" by Alessia Cara.
> 
> The two lines of doggerel are from something I vaguely remember hearing years ago and have been unable to track down, so I probably have them wrong.


	11. Fallen Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry visits Jefferson and Grace and begins to find ask the right questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-beta-ed and probably in need of serious checking, but I wanted to get this out today no matter what.
> 
> It may show that I've been to New England in the fall. I was thinking of a real maple tree, though it may have grown in my memory since I last saw it.

It was autumn in Maine.  The smells in the air were different here than they’d been back in the Enchanted Forest.  Home had been thick with the scent of pine.  Here, fall was the scent of fallen leaves.  Maple, oak, crabapple, and all the trees that made New England forests look as though they were on fire, dominated the land. 

It seemed to Jefferson the bushes were less thick on the ground, too, though that might have been because of how rarely he walked among them.  But, turning away from the well-worn paths had meant wading through ferns and tall grasses, often as not.  They were paler greens, growing in the pines’ shade.  Here, he supposed plants had to be stronger and more stubborn to dig their roots through the thick layers of fallen leaves, generations of them carpeting the forests.

The Queen’s son and his daughter sat on a wide, wooden swing that was set beside an ancient maple in the back of the house.  Its trunk was as wide around as Jefferson’s outstretched arms.  He didn’t know which world it had come from, though it struck him as something belonging to this land, a silent watcher that had presided over this place centuries before Jefferson’s people had set foot here.  It had accepted the newcomers and had a protective air, its broad limbs shielding the house from storms and other troubles.

Jefferson was more wary of the Queen’s son.  Oh, he knew he owed the boy.  He had twice over helped Jefferson in getting his daughter back.  He had brought Emma Swan here and pushed her into breaking the curse when nothing else would (Jefferson, who tried his own hand at pushing Emma into freeing them, knew how hard that could be).  He’d had a taste himself of how the boy must have done it when, afraid to face his daughter after their memories were returned, the child had helped him face his own fears.

But, since then, things had changed.  The boy seemed more . . . more _slippery_ than he once had.  Distant as Jefferson was from the town, he still heard things—and he saw a great deal more.  The heroes of Storybrooke were not quite the heroes they had once been.  And Grace had had a fight with him, although Jefferson didn’t know what about.

 _She doesn’t want to worry you,_ Jefferson thought morosely.  He knew Grace tried to protect him when it should be the other way around.  But, try as he might, he didn’t know how to fix that.

Like now.  He stood, out of sight, watching Grace and Henry from the window.  The boy had hurt his daughter.  Was he a good father watching out for her?  Or was this another sign that he was broken, skulking from the shadows, spying on his own child?

He didn’t know.  But, he continued to stand there, the window a little ajar in case there was a chance of hearing them, breathing in the scents of autumn.

That was how he saw the woman come walking out of the woods.

She wore pale blue jeans, tight fitting but still fairly practical for a walk in the woods.  Of course, the practicality was ruined by her Persian blue stiletto heels, though she seemed to move easily enough in them.  Jefferson wondered how.  The earth was soft and moist.  She should be sinking into it.  She wore a sleeveless shirt patterned white and blue.  It was made of some silky material to thin for this weather.  Grace and Henry were wearing their jackets, after all. Her hair was pale blond, the color of sunlight.  And she was covered in blood.

It wasn’t hers, or Jefferson would have been more worried.  It didn’t seem to have been splattered on her, either.  That was always a bad sign.  People like that had either been standing near when something awful happened or had done the awful thing themselves.

No, she looked as though she had been caught in the rain and the rain had turned to blood, an odd thing, even for Storybrooke, but he supposed it happened.  When she reached the children (they were still children, no matter what Grace might say) she knelt down a few feet away from the spring, watching them, eyes sad.

X

As Henry biked up the road to Grace’s house, there had been stretches of high ground where he could smell the sea.  He didn’t know if it was part of the curse that made the town or the mundane magic that might be part of Maine in the fall, but the hills and trees seemed to hold back the salt water smell everywhere else.  He should know.  He’d traveled outside the town, after all, but his mind had always been on other things, not on how the real world might be different from the one he knew.

She gave him a long, level look when she opened the door.  It reminded Henry of the way he’d sometimes looked at people, back during the curse, trying to figure out who they were and how safe it was to tell them anything.  She looked over his school uniform (it was sweaty; he’d biked hard once he’d left his grandfather’s, trying to leave it behind him) and the backpack slung over his shoulder (it had a larger collection of books than usual, although he wasn’t certain anymore what answers he was looking for—or where he could even find them).

Whatever she saw, she decided (grudgingly) to give him a chance.  She didn’t invite him into the house (almost no one ever went into the house, but—after what Emma and his grandmother had told them about the one time they’d gone in—Henry didn’t want to).  Instead, they went around back and sat on a swing by a tree so large Henry wondered if it could be Yggdrasil till he noticed it was a maple, not an ash.

“I thought about what you said,” Henry told her. “About what I did.  I—I tried to apologize to my grandfather, but. . . .”

“He was still mad at you?” Grace asked.

Henry shook his head.  “Worse.  He didn’t care.  He thought I was lying to him, but it didn’t matter to him anymore.”

Grace was silent for a long a time.  Henry wondered if it meant she shared Rumplestiltskin’s opinion.  Then, very quietly, she said, “My mama died long before the curse.  Did you know that?”

“It’s why your dad didn’t want to work for Regina,” Henry said.  Because he’d lost Grace’s mother and he couldn’t lose her, too.  Like his grandfather felt about Henry’s father.

Grace frowned.  “Your book doesn’t say much if that was all it told you.  Mama—Mama was wonderful.  She was more than just a line in a story.”

Henry remembered the wonderful, eye-opening feeling when he’d first started to read the storybook, when he’d realized everything in it was real—the _people_ were _real_ and they were all around him.  When had he begun to forget that? 

“I’m sorry.”

Grace looked skeptical but she went on.  “Losing Mama was hard.  But, losing Papa—I didn’t know what had happened to him or whether or not he was ever coming back—that was harder.  But, what happened to Papa—he knew where I was, he could see me every day, but he couldn’t talk to me or come near me or do anything—that was hardest of all.

“That’s what happened to your grandpa.  Your papa died, but you were right there.  Except you weren’t.”  She glanced quickly at the house then looked away.  “It’s not easy to come back from that.”  She looked at the bag.  “Do you still have the storybook with you?”

Henry nodded and unzipped the bag.  He was pulling out the storybook when he heard a man clear his throat.  Grace went pale with shock.  “Papa?” The books came tumbling out of Henry’s bag.

Jefferson was standing a few feet from them.  His cravat was all askew, letting Henry see the red mark around his throat where the Mad Hatter’s head had been cut away.  He wasn’t looking at either of them.  “Bluebell,” he whispered in an odd, little sing-song, eyes fixed on an empty space a few feet in front of them.  “Bloodbell.  The bloodbells chime. . . .”

“Papa?” Grace said again, getting up from the swing.  Henry could hear the fear in her voice.

“Hello, Grace, Henry,” Jefferson said.  “Bluebell, Bloodbell, it’s good to see you.  Though, you’re not quite yourself, are you?”

“Papa, who are you talking to?”

“Belle, I think.  Or someone like her.  Can’t you see her?”

“There’s no one there, Papa.”

“Oh?  She must be like the one who sent you the messages.  Or the same one.  Are you?”

One of Henry’s books—just a schoolbook from English class—had fallen open.  The pages flipped past as though they were caught in the wind, though the autumn air was crisp and still (the pages, Henry thought, sounded like autumn leaves scattering in a breeze).  Somehow, Henry was not surprised to see it open up on a poem.

_The ghosts swarm._

_They speak as one_

_person. Each_

_loves you. Each_

_has left something_

_undone._

Henry felt the hair rise up on the back of his neck.  It was like when he’d first begun reading the storybook—or when Grace had shattered through his smugness and made him see the truth—a strange, not-quite-sane sureness that this was the truth

“Are you Belle?” he asked.  Then, he added, though he knew it was impossible. “Are you a ghost?”

X

_Bluebell, Bloodbell._

The Shadow had mused over the names, the Hatter’s old nickname for her and the new one he had just chosen.  _Bloodbell._ She remembered an old tale with a church bell that had killed men three times, a soldier set on ravaging the church during a time of war, a murderer who thought to hide in the bell tower, and a young man whose sins (if there be any) remained unknown.

She knelt on the ground by the children, wishing for words.  Even when the pile of books came spilling out, it was hard to find any that fit her needs.

But, the Hatter, in his madness, did what even Rumplestiltskin could not.  He saw her.  He spoke to her as though there were nothing strange in a blood drenched ghost kneeling on the dry leaves.

Rumplestiltskin hadn’t.  Perhaps, because he was sane.  Perhaps, because she was what she was, the heart of the woman who had always loved him, and no one could see what they didn’t believe in.

 _A ghost,_ she thought.  _I am a ghost.  I am a spirit cut loose from the flesh that should hold me._

So, at last, she found an answer that seemed to fit for Henry.  When he questioned her again, her thoughts sifted through the poems and tales lying in a heap at his feet as though they were her own memories.  Three words stood out to her, and she offered them up as the only answer she had.

Was she dead?  Was she alive?  Was she a tattered scrap of the past with no right to be in this world at all?

She looked at Henry and gave him what she feared was truth.  _I am becoming. . . ._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem Belle used was from "Unbidden" by Rae Armentrout. 
> 
> There is a song, apparently, that includes the phrase "bloodbells chime," by a group called Current 93, but I didn't care for it and wouldn't recommend it. The story Belle remember is from "Nine Tailors" by Dorothy Sayers. The avenging church bell was what I was thinking of. 
> 
> I needed the words "I am becoming" and just used them. Yes, the quote is used elsewhere, but not in a context that worked and seemed remotely likely to be in Henry's schoolbooks.


	12. Last Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Shadow is finally able to talk, but it may be too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unedited again. But, I'm trying to keep to a schedule and it's been a crazy week. Here's hoping posting this as is isn't a really bad idea.

_I am becoming. . . ._

Grace wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.  From the look on his face, neither was Henry.

“She can’t be dead,” Grace said.  “Can she?  She’s Belle and Belle’s still alive.”

“Is she?” Papa asked. “She’s been a ghost of herself since she came back from the Underworld.  What do you think, young Henry?  Did anything strange happen to Bluebell in the land of the dead?  Stranger than just being there, I mean?”

Henry reddened.  “I—I don’t know,” he stammered.  He didn’t say, _I wasn’t paying attention,  I packed up and left without even seeing if she could leave_ ,  though Grace was pretty sure that was the honest answer—and she was pretty sure Papa knew it, too.  There was a pointed edge lying under the consideration in his voice that told her he’d meant to draw blood, even if Henry didn’t catch it.

“Too bad,” Papa said with the same cruel consideration.  “It would be useful to know what happened to her.”  He looked at the person only he could see.  “Although we know part of it, don’t we? 

“ _O my Belle’s like a blue, blue rose_

_That’s newly sprung in tombs—”_

“Papa!” Grace cut him off, looking at Henry and hoping he hadn’t made anything of that.  She might trust Henry a little more than she had, but that didn’t mean she was going to tell Mayor Mills’ son what she had stolen out of Mayor Mills’ tomb.

Grace tried to think of a way to distract Henry from Papa.  But, she thought of Belle, torn apart and half a ghost—raw and bleeding, if Papa was right—and the question that came out of her was as wounded as she supposed Belle was.  “What happened to you?” 

As an afterthought, she pulled out her cell phone and put it on the ground, more or less near where she thought Belle might be.  Bringing up the playlist, she hoped Belle (if Papa was right about that, he wasn’t always the best source on these things) could use it. 

But, it wasn’t the phone that she used, it was one of Henry’s books.  The pages of a book flipped by, as if caught in a breeze.  It was _The Last Unicorn._ The cover had a picture of an old tapestry, like the ones rich people had in the old world (Papa had told her once about some of the ones Mr. Gold had there.  She knew there’s been at least one of a unicorn in the Dark Castle, too).

 _“No other witch in the world holds a harpy captive,”_ Grace read, “ _and none ever will. I would keep her if I could only do it by feeding her a piece of your liver every day.”_

_“Oh, that’s nice,” Rukh said. He sidled away from her. “What would you do if she only wanted your liver?” he demanded. “What would you do then?”_

_“Feed her yours anyway,” said Mommy Fortuna. “She wouldn’t know the difference.  Harpies aren’tbright.”_

Papa’s eyes went wide.  “ _Oh,_ ” he said.  “That explains it.”

X

It was almost creepy, Henry thought, the way Grace and her dad took this so calmly.  Henry was the author and he was (sort of) getting used to the weird stuff that went with that—like waking up and finding out bizarre stories about people he didn’t even know had been crawling out of his pen while his brain was busy elsewhere.  But, what was their excuse?

And that was one of the self-centered, rude thoughts Grace got mad over.  Henry remembered the story of how Isaac had met Cruella.  He hadn’t just been wandering around, knocking on random doors to see what was going on behind them.  He’d felt something and stopped at _that_ house and knocked on _that_ door. 

He felt something now, something Jefferson already understood—and it scared him.

_I don’t want to know what this is._

“What?” Grace asked. “Explains what, Papa?”

“What happened to her.  There are some things you have to be willing to give away your heart to have.  But, there are always some people who want to pay with someone else’s.”

“But, why would—” She stopped and stared at Henry.  The look on her face reminded him times back under the curse when Graham would slip and say something about Regina that Henry hadn’t understood then but did now, the look that said I-shouldn’t-be-talking-about-this-in-front-of-the-kid.  Except Grace looked sorry for him, too.

“My mom,” Henry said.  “You think she did this.  But, she wouldn’t.  She’s changed.”  He meant to sound defiant, to sound _angry_ that they’d even suggest this.  Instead, he only sounded scared.

“A rose by any other name still has thorns,” Jefferson said.

X

_Shadow Belle, Bloodbell._

Looking at Henry, she was reminded of a saying about bells.  Far away, across the sea, in the land Rumplestiltskin was supposed to have come from and where he had never been, the small villages still rang their church bells when one of their people died.  They called the ringing a tailor. Nine tailors made a man.

Looking at Henry, seeing the rising fear in his eyes, she felt as if she had struck him a blow.  He understood—or was beginning to—and she could see how even the beginning of knowledge cut at him.

If it had just been herself, she would have been tempted to give up, to be legend, a myth, a ghost that wandered the edges of the small town.  Let Henry and Grace forget, let this become nothing more than a tale children told round a campfire trying to frighten one another.

But, Belle—the other Belle, the real Belle whose heart had given birth to her—was withering away inside.  And her fears, the Shadow knew, would surely destroy her child. 

What would become of the Shadow, then?  She was the strength of Belle’s heart.  What would happen when the spring that gave her life was drained dry?

And what about the others?  She didn’t know what Regina was taking from Emma, David, and Snow, but she had seen the changes in them, the slow erosion as they forgot who they were.

Poems, as always, came to mind.

_A blanker whiteness of benighted snow_

_With no expression, nothing to express._

Gallows humor, she thought, and nothing she should be telling Henry.

But, Henry was looking at her, almost as if he could see her.  “Did my mom—did Regina do this to you?”

Pages in a school book fell open: _To ask the question is to answer it._

“But—she’s changed,” Henry pleaded.

She understood that pain, the pain of knowing someone hadn’t changed as much as she wanted them to.

_I love him.  All of him.  Even the parts that belong to the darkness._

The words weren’t written anywhere, and she couldn’t say them.

She wanted to tell him it was all right to love her, even when she wasn’t the person he wanted her to be.

Grace reached out and put her hand on Henry’s shoulder.  “It’s all right,” she said, looking at her father.  “Henry, what you feel for your mom. . . .” She hesitated.  The Shadow understood that hesitation, too, the hopeless struggle to find the right words.  “It’s all right,” she finished lamely, aware the words couldn’t carry all the weight she wanted to give them.

 _They never do,_ the Shadow wanted to tell her.  _The greatest writers who ever lived could not find the words for a fraction of what they wished they could say._

Henry was looking at her (more or less. It was close to the right direction).  His face was resolute.  “What do you want?” he asked.  “What do you need?”

Papers stirred and rustled.

_. . . . the harpy’s old yellow eyes sank into the unicorn’s heart and drew her close. . . . “Set me free.”_

_Throw open the cage, and let me out. . . ._

_The graves yield up their dead. . . ._

_. . . .Let me walk again beneath the stars, let me taste the rain on my skin._

Set me free—set me free—set me free—

She tried every way she could to say the words.

Henry nodded, resolute.  “How?”

_Two become one._

_Return what you have stolen._

Henry’s resolution wavered.  He looked at Grace and Jefferson.  “Does anyone know what that means?”

The Shadow searched her mind for answers.  No, this wasn’t the way to do it.  Hints and riddles wouldn’t free her.  Henry needed to tell someone who would understand, who knew magic and spells better than anyone else in Storybrooke.  He had to ask his grandfather.

Grace’s phone was lying on the ground.  There was an app, the town directory downloaded into it.  She reached towards it and stopped.

Pain tore through her, followed by fear—no, by _terror._

Belle.  She was feeling what Belle felt.

Whatever their separation had done to her, Belle had just run out of time.


	13. Born of Water and Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A birth at Granny's

Too late.  The Shadow arrived too late.  Belle was gone. 

The child was coming.  _Too soon,_ she thought, panicked, terrified.  She thought of her mother and the difficult labors and miscarriages that had followed Belle’s birth.  She remembered the blue, mottled face of the baby brother she was not supposed to see before they closed him in his small, doll-sized coffin, born too soon to live.

There, on the diner floor, were the waters that had carried her child in her other self’s womb.  She knelt down beside it, knowing what it meant.  An irony, that her world called magic and this one called science, that the unborn drowned and died in air. 

Invisible tears ran down her face, falling into the water beside her without a sign or ripple.  Her child would die, and she could not even give it a mother’s tears.

 _Too soon,_ she thought again.  _Too soon._

She saw Grumpy, practical as always in the face of terrors and disasters, fetching a bucket and mop.  Soon, even this sign of her child’s loss would be swept away.  She had never held him, never touched him, never felt his small life stirring within her before it was snuffed out.

Days ago, she would could still move through glass and water.  She could have entered this small pool and . . . what?  Reached her son?  Helped him?  _Saved_ him?

She reached out with insubstantial hands against the stillborn water of life, desperately trying to reach this piece of her curse that she had left behind. 

The touch it jolted through, an electrical current, painful, deadly.  She opened her mouth, wanting to scream, but no words came out.  She could only speak with stolen phrases, and there are none for this moment.

The water reached out for her, grabbed her—

 _Devoured_ her.

X

Grumpy jumped back, holding the mop like a quarterstaff (it was a light wood, probably pine, that would snap at the first blow. Seriously, why couldn’t they make these out of something solid, like oak?) as the stuff on the floor began to _move._

OK, that was bad.

It rose up—or something rose out of it.  It was like a fountain but, watching it bubble up off the tiled floor, Grumpy thought of whales he’d seen off the coast, spouting out the old air as they drew in the fresh and new.

And, then, there was a woman, soaked through and shivering in the center of Granny’s.  Not just any woman, either.  It was Belle.  And it wasn’t just water covering her.  Blood, sticky and half-dried and was mixed in with it.

“Belle?  What are you doing here?”

She looked up at him, practically choking on the things she wanted to say—he could see the words bubbling up in her eyes the way water had bubbled up on the floor.  She looked at him, struggling to speak, choking on her own silence.

“Where—” she gasped, “Where are you going, where have you been?”

“Uh . . . what?”

She shook her head frustrated.  Something had happened to her hair.  Beneath the streaks of blood, it had turned white.  _That can’t be good._

“I—I—I’m not lost. To be lost, you have to know where you’re supposed to be. And I don’t even know that.”

“OK, sure, that sounds good.”

She grabbed his arm. “How know you that I cannot speak?  . . . . I am wearied of these borrowed letters.”

“Belle—”

“Listen!” she said. “Don’t listen to _me._   Listen!”  Again, she seemed to desperately search for what to say—for _anything_ to say.  “What she threatened she did. Echo only repeats the last of what is spoken and returns the words she hears.”

_Belle has flipped out._

Grumpy could have broken free from her easily enough—he spent hours a day putting his pickax through diamond and stone.  But, the desperation in Belle’s eyes held him.  Those weren’t crazy-woman eyes.  He thought of Henry, back in the day, desperately trying to get someone—anyone—to understand what was wrong with the town.

_O this is the creature that has never been._

The weird quote, the weird way it was given to him—the weird way they’d been told how to free his brother—it all clicked.

“You can’t talk, can you?” he asked. “Just with quotes and stuff.”

Belle nodded.  “Echo,” she said.  “It helps her if she can quote instead of working out words of her own.” Her grip tightened on his arm.  “This exposed child, where is he? Doth he live?”

“Huh?  Oh, you mean your baby?  Somebody magicked you, made time go fast, and you’re in labor . . . Uh, except you’re not.  What are you doing here?”

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. . . .  The hero with a thousand faces. . . . How can we stand face to face till we _have_ faces?” 

“I didn’t get any of that.  But . . . Oh.  I get it.  There are two of you?  Like Regina and the other Regina?  Like Jekyll and Hyde?”

She looked at him like she was drowning and Grumpy had thrown her a lifeline.  She nodded eagerly.

The only question was, was she Good Belle or Bad Belle?

She’d given him the same line the invisible, phone-calls-only Belle had given him about the creature that wasn’t.  And that Belle was the reason his bother wasn’t a tree anymore.

“OK,” Grumpy said. “Get in my truck.  We’re getting out of here.”

Ashley stepped forward uncertainly.  “Grumpy, who is she?  What are you doing?”

“She’s Belle,” Grumpy said.  He tossed Ashley the mop. “Sorry, you better clean up the mess yourself.  We’ve got to get out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belle went a little quote happy in this one.
> 
> Once again, we have Rilke's "This Is the Creature."
> 
> "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Oates.
> 
> I cheated on the "I'm not lost" quote. I found it but I couldn't find where it's supposed to have come from.
> 
> "How know you that I cannot speak? I am wearied of these borrowed letters" from Cyrano de Bergerac.
> 
> "Listen. Don't listen to ME, listen," from The Last Unicorn again.
> 
> The line about Echo is from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
> 
> The line about the exposed child is from Ion by Euripides.
> 
> "Two Roads Diverged in Yellow Wood" by Frost.
> 
> "Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Campbell.
> 
> "How can we stand face to face till we have faces?" from Till We Have Faces by Lewis.
> 
> If I missed any, let me know.


	14. Touching Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle is giving birth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies this took so long. I got distracted by a short story (Wanted) and then Life jumped me in a dark alley (actually, I could see it coming. It didn't help).

_This was wrong_. 

Though she didn’t fight, though she knew her own choices had led her here, some part of Belle knew how terribly wrong this was.

Hook and Emma had hurried her off.  She heard them talking to her, telling her to be calm, not to worry.  They hadn’t bothered to ask her questions and, in the stark terror of those moments, she hadn’t wondered at it, not till she saw where they had taken her.

“The convent?” she gasped as another contraction hit her. 

“Blue can help you,” Emma said. “She’ll keep out Gold.”

“Doc,” Belle said through gritted teeth as Emma and Hook pulled her out of the car.  What did the fairies even know about giving birth? From all she’d read, it wasn’t as if they ever did it.  “The baby.”

“The nuns can handle this,” Emma assured her, pulling her up the steps and into the convent.

Two sisters were waiting for them.  They stood on either side of Belle hurrying (forcing?) her along, almost at a run.  Emma and Hook straggled behind.  Belle’s body protested each step, wanting nothing so much as to collapse to the floor.   But, the nuns, of course, wouldn’t have a hospital gurney.  Did they even have an infirmary?

Apparently not.  They half led, half dragged Belle into the convent’s living quarters, taking her to a nun’s cell.  The bed was small and narrow, little more than a cot, and the sheets and blankets were lying askew from whoever had slept in it last.  She could clearly smell the owner’s scent as they laid her down on it. 

 _This is wrong_ , Belle thought.  She had helped with other women’s births during the Ogre Wars as the castle filled with refugees.  Desperate as those days had been, she’d managed to always make sure there was clean linen for the women to lie on. 

“The Mother Superior is to be summoned when it’s born,” one sister said to the other before leaving the room.  Hook and Emma came in as she left.

The remaining sister stood by the door ( _guarding it_ , a dark corner of Belle’s mind said, though she pushed the thought away).  She did not offer help or any advice. 

Emma, after a moment’s hesitation, came over.  “We need to get you comfortable,” she said.  “Loosen your clothing and . . . and stuff.”  She looked like she was desperately trying to remember what must be ten year old memories from when Henry was born.

At that moment, Belle couldn’t imagine forgetting one detail of this nightmare day.  She would never forget the pain or the fear, but would she remember anything useful for another woman?

“Doc,” she gasped as Emma pulled off her shoes.  “Where’s Doc?”

“The convent’s locked down,” the fairy at the door said calmly.  “No one’s getting in or out.”

Emma, now helping pull off Belle’s underthings, looked at the fairy in exasperation.  For a moment, she looked like the old Emma, the one Belle had first met when she came storming into Rumplestiltskin’s shop after the curse had broken demanding to know what was going on.  She sounded almost exactly the same as she had then. “Well, don’t you have a medical fairy or something?”

The fairy looked insulted at being questioned but hid it quickly.  “There’s Sister Fuschia, but she has other duties right now.”

Emma fixed her with a steely glare. “No, she doesn’t.  Go get her.”

This time, the fairy didn’t hide how offended she was.  She drew herself up coldly. “The Blue Fairy ordered me to stay here.”

“Fine.” Emma turned to Hook.  He looked away quickly from Belle’s legs and hiked up skirt, changing his expression from interest to concern.  “Killian, go find her.  Don’t come back without Sister Fuschia, whoever she is.”

Hook glanced again at Belle’s skirt, looking slightly disappointed.  “Are you sure. . . ?”

“Unless you know something about delivering babies.  Get going!”

Hook looked surprised at Emma using that tone of voice with him but he left. 

“It’s all right,” Emma told Belle.  “Thousands of women do this every day.  There’s nothing to it.”

Thousands of women did it every day.  And some died every day.  Even in this world.  In the old world, without this one’s medicine and doctors, even more had perished.

 _Rumple,_ she thought.  He knew about babies.  In all his years of dark deals, he’d been summoned more than a few times to bedsides of women who must have been just as desperate and afraid as Belle was right now.  A few had even happened while Belle was at the Dark Castle with him.  She’d also looked through some of his books on childbirth and read the many notes he’d scrawled in the margins.  He would have known what he was doing.

She probably had more experience of childbirth than anyone else in this building.  But, it all seemed far away and forgotten.  _Fear,_ she told herself.  _It destroys your thinking, addles your thoughts._ She tried to clear her mind, to be calm and peaceful, the way she had when she was dealing with wounded during the war.  Ignore the sounds of battle, don’t worry whether they’re coming from outside or inside the castle.  That’s not your duty.  Your duty is here and now with the wounded in front of you.  Focus on them and let the rest fade away.

But, it didn’t work.  It was as if everything she knew, everything she’d done had all happened to another person, someone braver and stronger than her.  Emma was doing a better job than she was, loosening or removing Belle’s clothes.  It helped, making her a little more comfortable, or it would until Hook inevitably came back and saw her like this.  It didn’t matter how many times she’d told herself Hook was her friend, the thought of him seeing her like this made her shudder.

“The sheet,” she told Emma.  “Cover me with the sheet.  It will help.” That reminded her of another thing.  “The pillows.  Prop them up behind me.  Help me sit up.”

“Right,” Emma said.  “Forgot about that.  Good idea.”  She picked up the one, thin pillow from the bed.  “Got any more of these?” she asked the fairy.

“Fairies live lives of simplicity,” the fairy said coldly.  “We don’t indulge in . . . frivolities.”  Belle wondered if fairies indulged in swear words.  She sounded as if she were considering using some next time she was asked a question.

“Well, get some,” Emma snapped, taking control in a way Belle hadn’t seen her do in a long time.

“The Mother Superior—”

“The Mother Superior told you to help Belle have her baby.  So, help before I kick you out of here.”

The fairy drew herself up and looked ready to give Emma a tongue lashing (with or without swear words) but restrained herself.  Maybe she’d remembered she wasn’t the only one in the room with magic and that Emma might just be able to clean the floor with her.  “I’ll be quick,” she said. “Beware of any strangers trying to enter.”

_Strangers. . . ._

An image floated through Belle’s mind, a figure, like a sea nymph, rising from a murky pool.  At first, she thought she was drenched with water.  Then, she saw she was drenched with blood.

_Whose blood is it?_

Another contraction hit her.  Emma held her hand but the fire that had briefly kindled in the savior’s eyes had already begun to fade as she settled down beside Belle.  Belle wondered if she was thinking of Henry’s birth and how that had ended.  Emma had been lied to, deceived and betrayed.  As a result, she had lost her child on the day he was born.

Belle closed her eyes and saw a blue rose, the thorns dripping with blood.

 _My blood,_ she thought.

And she knew, now that it was too late to change anything, now that there was no way to change things, this was wrong.

X

Pain wracked the Shadow in greater and greater waves.  But, it wasn’t her pain.  It was Belle’s.

 _This is wrong,_ she thought.  _The child can’t come this fast.  This is all wrong._

The world faded in and out around her.  It seemed as if hours passed before they reached the convent.  Grumpy took a back road, barely more than a hiking trail, and parked in the woods still some ways from the fairies’ fortress.

“We’re going to have to walk from here,” he said. “The fairies are waiting for Gold to attack.  They’ll be watching for trouble.  But, I learned a thing or two from Sneaky.  I’ll get us in.” Another pain—a contraction—hit her.  “You going to be OK?”

She nodded.  It wasn’t as if she had a choice.  She _had_ to reach Belle.  She felt the whispers of Belle’s fears, had seen them reflected in the laws Rumplestiltskin hopelessly scoured. 

_Her friends whisper poison into her ears, and she has nothing left to fight it.  Her courage, her strength, her faith in love, they have been taken away from her and ground to dust.  She is like a woman so afraid of shipwreck she will cast herself into the sea. . . ._

“All right, then,” Grumpy said.  “Let’s do this.”  He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a small pouch, like another he had given her long ago.

_Fairy dust._

“This is going to help, but we have to save it for the end, all right?”

The Shadow nodded again and followed him out of the woods.

Grumpy held onto the pouch, and the Shadow thought he was ready to use it more than once when a sound or sudden movement startled them, afraid of what might be coming for them.  But, no fairies appeared to attack them; and they reached what seemed to be his goal, a spot by the shadow of an oak tree, unharmed.  Astrid was waiting just a few feet away, holding one of the nun’s cape-like coats and a scarf.

“Stop,” Grumpy told Belle.  “This is where the barrier will be.”

 _How does he know that?_   The Shadow wondered.  But, it made sense from what she’d read of magic.  Old oaks were supposed to have magic in them.  It would make a good anchor for whatever defenses the fairies had set up.  She wondered if Rumplestiltskin would destroy it when he fought his way through. 

Grumpy opened the pouch and took out a small pinch of fairy dust, sprinkling it over the Shadow and pushed her across the barrier.  He’d been right about the barrier being there.  She could feel it tingling around her, but it let her pass.

Still odd that Grumpy would know, she thought.  Did he come here often to meet Astrid?

The fairy-nun’s eyes widened as the Shadow stepped through.  “You’re Belle,” she said.  “You’re really Belle.”

“Told you she was,” Grumpy said.

“I believed it.  I just didn’t _believe_ it.”

“So, what?  You thought I was going to let a monster loose on you?”

“Oh, the barrier would have stopped dark magic, even with fairy dust.  Assuming the dust didn’t dissolve her. . . .  Uh, not that I wanted you to dissolve or anything.”

The Shadow shrugged.  If she had dissolved, would that mean the spell creating her was broken?  Would she and Belle be whole?  ?  _Bluebelle_ , the Hatter called her other half.  _Bloodbelle,_ he’d called her, as if she were a person, the same as Belle.  But, she wasn’t, was she?  She was only the torn remains of whatever Regina hadn’t stolen yet. 

She tried to explain it to Astrid.  “I am thing of threads and tatters, a knight of ghosts and shadows.”

Astrid looked at Grumpy.  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s how she talks, quotes and stuff.  She doesn’t have words of her own.  Can you get her in?”

“I think so. Everyone else is inside,” she said.  “We don’t have babies here that often.”  She handed the coat to the Shadow.  “Here, put this on.  And let me help you with the scarf.” She began adjusting the strip of wool like a hood around the Shadow’s head.  “We need to hide that hair.  I wish we had time to give you a bath.  Sneaking past everyone, that’s going to be the hard part.”

“What about Doc?” Grumpy said. “Tell them she’s his nurse or something.” He looked at the blood on the Shadow.  “She came straight from surgery.”

“Doc?  Why would he be here?”

Grumpy stared at her.  “What do you mean, why would he be here?  You’ve got a woman having a baby! He’s her doctor.  Or are you trying to tell me you got Whale instead?”

 _Not Whale,_ the Shadow thought.  Belle hadn’t let him near her since the sonogram, not since Zelena had reminded her what a friend of Rumple’s Whale had always been.

“I . . . I don’t think anyone’s told either of them.  Blue wouldn’t let Whale here before the curse broke—he hit on too many of the sisters.  As for Doc, um, well. . . .” 

What she meant was Doc was the leader of the Dwarves and he’d told Blue things had changed now that they were no longer in the old world.  Dwarves had lives that were about more than just mining diamond dust for fairies. 

“She’s still holding a grudge about that? When you’ve got a woman in labor?”

Astrid looked miserable but all she could do was shrug.  “It’s Blue’s decision.” 

“Right,” Grumpy said.  “I get it.  But, if Doc’s not there. . . .”

“I can get her in,” Astrid said, finishing up with the scarf.  “No one’s going to look close, not today.  But, you—”

The Shadow looked at Grumpy, surprised.  That he had gotten her here was gift enough.  She hadn’t expected him to follow her into the lion’s den.  But, he held the pouch of fairy dust in his hand, ready to use.

And, under Astrid’s gaze, he knotted the drawstrings closed.  “Yeah, I get it.  No one’s going to mistake me for a fairy.  But, I’m calling my brothers.  Doc ought to be here.  And, if you don’t come out, we’re coming in after you.”

“You can’t fight Blue!” Astrid said.  She hesitated.  “Can you?”

Wands versus pickaxes, the Shadow thought.  But, that wasn’t all the Dwarves had to fight with.

“When two people want something the other has, a deal can always be struck,” she said, looking at the dust pouch. “All you need is a little, faith, trust, and pixie dust,” she told Grumpy. “Pick your poison—poisons the Reverend Mothers can use for their tricks.”

It was mangled together, but she hoped Grumpy understood what she was saying.  The fairies needed fairy dust for their magic.  The Dwarves controlled it.

“Good point,” Grumpy said, hefting the pouch in his hand. “We’ll remind Blue of that if we have to.  Now, get going, you two, before that baby’s in college.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And quotes from old ballads, Dune, the show itself, and Peter Pan (Rumple would not approve, but I couldn't think of another way to remind Grumpy the Dwarves have a strong negotiating position).


	15. Ill Met

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Shadow finally reaches Belle. It does not go well.

In her twenty-eight cursed years as the nuns’ most bumbling sister, the one who could be counted on to lose track of time and everything else, one thing Astrid had learned was the quickest way to get anywhere in the convent while avoiding people on the way.  She was putting those skills to good use, now.  It didn’t hurt that most of the sisters were over on the front side, getting ready to defend against what everyone assumed would be a frontal assault by the Dark One.

Astrid thought about what Leroy had said.  If the Dark One gave Belle the potion, why didn’t he grab her as soon as she swallowed it instead of waiting till the fairies had her locked up?

And (not that Astrid should be making excuses for the Dark One), he had only used the potion before on a fairy. Not that Fuschia hadn't freaked out over it, but fairies aged back in their sleep.  Everyone knew that.  Or everyone who was a fairy knew that. And the Dark One knew more about fairies than most fairies did.  Fuschia had gone off to take a nape as soon as she'd reported what happened to the Mother Superior.

And, then, there was the strange, frail woman Leroy had her sneaking into the convent.  Astrid didn’t know much about how Jekyll and Hyde worked—her cursed self hadn’t even seen the movies—but she knew what fairies were taught: There was magic for dividing souls, and that magic was _never_ came to a good end.

“Whither away?” the woman asked.

 _Whither away?_ Well, that was what happened when you spoke in quotes (but weren’t there people besides Shakespeare who asked _Where are we going?_ ) “The nuns’ cells,” Astrid said. She gave a defeated sigh. “My room. That’s where she’ll be.”

The woman looked at her sharply.  Astrid guessed that _Why would my other half be stashed away in your room while she’s giving birth?_ probably hadn’t ever been in the quote section of _Reader’s Digest’_ s.  But, the look she gave her got the idea across.

“When someone has to give up a room for a guest, it’s always the lowest ranked sister.” She sighted again. “And that’s me.” 

X

The child was coming too quickly, the Shadow thought, as she raced alongside the young fairy.  She tried not to scream as the pains hit her.  She couldn’t stop—she _mustn’t_ stop.  They had to reach Belle in time.

It was not _her_ pain, she told herself (except it was).  Nothing was happening to her body (besides the pain). That was why she could force herself to move (barely).  What she felt, all this was Belle’s.  She was the one in labor, not the Shadow (but, if she wasn’t Belle, who was she?  _What_ was she?).

The fairy beside her had accepted everything the Dwarf had told her, as if this were something she already understood. Had the fairies seen this kind of magic before, then?

No words to ask, no time to think.  Belle, she had to get to Belle.

They reached the cells.  The Shadow knew that was what they called the living quarters in monasteries and convents, but the name sent a shiver down her spine.  She thought of dark, stone walls closing in on her, first in Regina’s tower, then in her underground asylum.  _It’s not the same,_ she told herself.  Belle wasn’t giving birth on a stone bench under the dim light of a single, dim bulb.  _They won’t do that to me—her—us.  They won’t._

They turned a corner, and there was Astrid’s room.  It was easy to spot since it was the only one with a fairy outside, standing guard.

“Bellona!” Astrid called to her.  “Mother Superior wants you.  She—” Mid-sentence, Astrid waved her wand.  There was a flash of pink light from Astrid’s wand, and Sister Bellona fell to the floor, unconscious. 

“I did that right!” Astrid said, looking terribly pleased with herself. 

The Shadow wanted to nod, to say something, but the pain was getting worse.  _Too soon, too fast._ She bit her lip and felt blood trail down her chin.  _Not my pain—not my pain—_

 _Don’t scream,_ she told herself.  _Whatever happens, don’t scream._ It was a wonder no one inside had heard the commotion out here.  _Too busy,_ she thought grimly, imagining what was happening ( _didn’t have to imagine, could feel it—and feel Belle’s fear, her confusion.  Rumplestiltskin.  Where was Rumplestiltskin?  He should be here by now. . . ._

Astrid was beside her, holding her hand.  “Belle?  What’s wrong?  What’s happening?” The Shadow had slumped to the floorShe had slumped to the floor, Astrid looking down at her.  How?  What was happening?  She didn’t understand—she couldn’t—

Then, abruptly, the pain stopped.  The Shadow took deep, gasping breaths, not knowing why they had stopped, waiting for them to start again.

The sound of a baby crying was coming from Astrid’s room.

X

The child came quickly, too quickly, Belle thought.   Babies weren’t born this way.  Not even this world, with all its science, could change that. 

Emma was beside her, trying to say encouraging things.  Belle tried to concentrate on the sound of her voice, but the world kept shifting.  She imagined herself somewhere out in the woods.  As the pain hit her, she thought of Grumpy for some reason.

 _“You going to be OK?”_ she heard him ask as clearly as if he were beside her. 

It had to be her imagination.  Emma hadn’t said it, and Killian—Belle couldn’t imagine him ever saying that.

_The scene shifted again.  She was a rose, a rose of icy blue so cold the air froze in wisps around it.  No, a real rose, warm with blood and clutched in Henry’s hand.  “Hurry,” she heard him say to someone unseen.  “We have to reach her.  Hurry.”_

“It’s coming,” she heard the fairy, Sister Fuschia, say.  She sounded cold and clinical. 

 _And smug,_ Belle thought, not understanding why.  Fuschia had done nothing more than crouch at the end of the bed and try to look like she was in charge.  But, Emma, who hadn’t done much more than tell Belle when she thought she should breathe and push (and Belle, choking on fear, had been glad someone was reminding her to do both those things) was far more help than the fairy was.

 _Rumplestiltskin,_ Belle thought, _I want Rumplestiltskin._

It was a ridiculous thought.  Rumplestiltskin was the reason she was here, giving birth long before her time—giving birth so horribly, _cursedly_ quickly.  He was the reason she was hiding in the convent behind magical walls.

_I want him.  I wish he were here with me._

It would be so easy, she thought.  All she had to do was call his name.  She was sure, deep in her gut (in what felt like the torn, knotted, destroyed remains of her gut as her child tore through it) the fairies’ barrier wouldn’t matter at all, then.  If Rumplestiltskin’s wife summoned him, calling for his help as she gave birth to their child, he would be there.  No power would hold him back.

 _He’s the reason I’m here,_ she reminded herself.  _He’s the reason this is happening to me._

“It’s here,” Fuschia said triumphantly.  She stood up, holding up the baby like a trophy of war.

“That’s not how you hold him!” Emma said.  “Support the head—keep him warm—don’t you know _anything_ about babies?” She took the baby from Fuschia, who looked outraged, and handed him to Belle.

“The Mother Superior—” she began indignantly.

“Warm water,” Emma said.  “We need to clean him up.  And don’t you have something to wrap him in?  Something _clean,_ ” she added, as Fuschia looked around the room at the used sheets and a sweater hanging on a hook by the bed.

“The Mother Superior will want to see it,” the fairy said, reaching to take the baby back.

Emma stood in her way. “Then, go get her— _after_ you get the water.  And a blanket or towel or something to wrap him in—something _clean_.  And something sterile to cut the cord.  Now, let Belle see her baby and get some rest.”

The fairy’s eyes turned cold.  “The _Mother Superior_ will want to see it,” she repeated coldly.  Belle thought she was about to lunge for her son.

Then, the door burst open.  A woman—a ghost—a monster—Belle wasn’t sure what she was—burst into the room.  She reached for Sister Fuschia—

_Belle felt her hand sink into the knot of hair at the base of the nun’s skull.  Her nails dug past silky strands and an army of bobby pins.  The cold emptiness inside of Belle was filled with rage._

“Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell,” the creature grabbed the fairy by the hair, dragging her back. 

X

The Shadow wasn’t sure what she’d planned to do.  If she thought about it at all, she was sure if she could just explain, if she could find Belle, speak to her, surely, that would be enough.  But, she was driven by need—the desperate need to reach Belle, to be whole.

Before it was too late.

Then, she’d opened the door to Astrid’s cell (small and narrow—smaller than the cage she’d been kenneled in at the asylum, but there was light and air—she could fight back the choking pain around her chest and breathe when she saw it).  She saw the fairy reach for her child, and words died away.  The Shadow lunged for the woman, seizing her by the hair and pulling her away, her fury boiling over into a curse against demons.

Pity, the woman was still here.  She’d hoped that might work.

The woman raised her wand, trying to fight free, as the other fairy, Astrid (names, it was so hard for her to think in names), rushed in with her own wand ready to fight.

The Shadow saw the sheriff, the one they also called the Savior, taking a step back, her own hands raised and ready for magic, but not sure what was happening or who she should be aiming at.  Her eyes widened as she saw the sparks fly from Astrid’s wand and hit the fairy the Shadow attacked—and the sparks from the other fairy’s wand hit Astrid.  The other fairy slumped to the ground, unconscious.  Astrid screamed before she fell.  The Shadow saw burns along her side where the magic had hit her.

“Stop!” the sheriff yelled.  Fire played at her fingertips.  “Whoever you are, get back!”

The Shadow raised her own hands—a sign she was unarmed, not an attempt at spells.  She stepped back. 

“Who are you?” the Savior demanded.

“A thing of shreds and patches,” the Shadow told her, the same as she had told Astrid.  “A knight of ghosts and shadows.”

“It’s some spell of the Crocodile’s,” Hook said. “Just kill it.”

The Shadow took another step back.  Could she be killed?  Hyde couldn’t die so long as Jekyll lived, but it had been a different spell that made her.  If the Savior killed her, would she die?  Would Belle die with her?

If she didn’t die, would she be what she had before, a slow pooling of the strength of Belle’s soul, trapped and unable to touch the world?

The Savior hesitated.  They were the same, the Shadow knew.  The queen bled strength from her the same as she had from Belle.  The Shadow didn’t know what had been taken from her, but the virtues that kept one person from gunning down another in a moment of fear, those had been eaten away.  The Shadow could only pray they weren’t gone entirely.

Or, if they were gone, that the memory of them, of what a good person _did_ would be enough to stop her.

The Savior looked from the Shadow to Belle (who watched them both, the child clutched tight to her chest), and back again.  “I—I’m not killing anyone,” she said. “Not till I understand what’s going on.”

The Shadow glanced at Hook, not certain he wouldn’t attack on his own.

 _Why is he even here?_ The Shadow wondered.  _How many times has he tried to kill me?  And they bring him into my—the_ her _— birthing room?_   It was like watching wolves prowl around a lamb that was just barely out of reach of their jaws.

“We are both,” the Shadow said, remembering the words the Savior’s father had once said.  “The house divided.”

“She’s crazy,” Hook said.

The Shadow looked at Belle.  There was something in her eyes ( _my eyes, our eyes_ ).  She thought it was recognition.  But, it was mixed with so much weariness.  Did she have any strength left at all?  Or had the Shadow, real and solid at last, stolen whatever scraps were left?

“My words are not my own,” the Shadow said desperately.  “Only echoes.”

“You’re like Jekyll and Hyde?” the Savior said. She looked from Belle to the Shadow again.  “How’d that happen?”

“The Crocodile,” Hook said. “I guess one wasn’t enough for him.”

The Shadow fought back the urge to spit on him.  That wouldn’t help her case.  “No one except the queen,” she said, wishing she could speak more clearly.

But, the Savior seemed to understand what she meant—and reject it. “Regina?” she looked at the Shadow as if she were a snake.  “You’re wrong.  She’s our friend, now.  She’s changed.”

Had she?  And, if the Savior really believed that, why had the Shadow seen a flicker of fear in her eyes? “You can tell a lie from the truth,” the Shadow said, reminding the Savior of her gift.  She _knew_ if people were lying (unless the queen had taken that, too). The Shadow did her best to pour all of her sarcasm into the idea of the queen’s innocence.  “Everything about this beautiful and ghastly lady is as it should be,” she said.  “Queen of night, queen of terror—” she turned deeply sarcastic, “—except her horrible reluctance for the role.”

“Regina’s our _friend._ She wouldn’t—”

“My friends did me deadly spite.  They came as thieves in the darksome night: they put my household all to flight.  They could not do to me more harm, so the stole the baby in my arms.”

_Why are you here, Savior?  Look around you.  You are stealing a child from its mother because she is too blinded by fear to hold on, from its father because you are too blinded to see how you’re being used._

Never mind.  She didn’t need the Savior’s belief.  There was only one person she needed and, in this place, at this time, she could summon him.  The words she needed were in a story every child in this land knew, a rhyme even she could say.

“Today I brew and tomorrow I bake, and then the queen’s child I’ll take—”

“Stop her!”

The Blue Fairy stood at the door.  Had she felt Astrid and the other fairy fighting?  Or was it some other, magical sense that summoned her?  She looked at the Shadow, pale faced and furious.

_No, the Shadow thought, not furious.  Afraid._

_If she’s that afraid, why doesn’t she stop me herself?_

The answer was obvious.  Fairies might not be demons, but some of the same rules applied.  They had power only where it was given to them. 

The Shadow smiled and went on with the rhyme.  “For she will never guess the same, that Rump—”

Eyes on the Mother Superior, she never saw Hook lunging at her, not until she felt his hook bury itself in her guts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning to all, don't make a character who speaks only in quotes. Allow her at least a little ability to use her own words or prepare to get a headache trying to put the big confrontations together.
> 
>  
> 
> The quotes:
> 
> “Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!” is from Richard III by Shakespeare.
> 
> “A thing of shreds and patches,” is from the song “A Wandering Minstrel I” from the operetta _The Mikado_ by Gilbert and Sullivan.
> 
> “A knight of ghosts and shadows,” is from “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song,” author unknown.
> 
> “We are both,” said by David Nolan Charming in the episode of the same name.
> 
> “My words are not my own,” from the New Testament.
> 
> “Only echoes,” is a line I remember from a fantasy I haven’t been able to track down. Alternately, assume it’s a reference to the curse Hera put on Echo in mythology.
> 
> “A house divided,” from Abraham Lincoln.
> 
> “No one except the queen,” from Jane Yolen’s book _Except the Queen_. 
> 
> “You can tell a lie from the truth.” The original quote is “I can tell a lie from the truth,” from “The Snow Fairy” by M. Lucie Chin, but I’m allowing the Shadow to modify pronouns in some cases.
> 
> “Everything about this beautiful and ghastly lady is as it should be, queen of night, queen of terror, except her horrible reluctance for the role.” is from “The Lady of the House of Love,” a vampire story by Angela Carter.
> 
> “My friends did me deadly spite. They came as thieves in the darksome night: they put my household all to flight. They could not do to me more harm, so the stole the baby in my arms.” is an altered version of the ballad “The Famous Flower of Serving Men,” author unknown, because I was going a little crazy finding quotes at this point. Besides, I really liked this one.
> 
> “Today I brew and tomorrow I bake, and then the queen’s child I’ll take. For she will never guess the same, that Rump—” is one of many versions of the rhyme in the Grimms story, “Rumpelstiltskin,” which the Shadow had to resort to because she can’t say the name flat out.


	16. Memory's Chords

“No one except the queen.”

_Regina._

Belle looked at the pale woman who had burst into the room.  She listened as the woman recited the lines of the old ballad.

_My friends did me deadly spite._

_They came as thieves in the darksome night:_

_They put my household all to flight._

_They could not do to me more harm,_

_So they stole the baby in my arms._

She understood her, strange and broken as her words were.  The ones she picked, they were from stories Belle had read, from songs she knew.  More than that, she picked and chose exactly as Belle would have. 

Belle looked at the child she was holding— _her_ child, her son—and held him close, trying to protect him.

_That’s a small thing.  That’s my heart you hold in your hand._

Those were words from yet another story, one that had nothing to do with what was happening now (or so Belle told herself).  But, the words echoed in her mind.  They weren’t in Belle’s voice or the pale woman’s (which was like Belle’s but higher).  They were in a warm, familiar Scottish brogue.

There was something about the pale woman.  Just seeing her, despite Belle’s exhaustion and fear, made her feel as if she were waking up, as if she were stepping into the light after too long spent trapped in a cold, dark fog.

 _What am I doing here?_ Belle wondered, holding her son close—the child she’d come here ready to give away, too blind with terror to think.

During the Ogre War, Belle had spent hours in her father’s war room, listening as battle plans were formed. She’d learned something of tactics and strategies—and also learned the slow, careful ways that a woman, who wasn’t supposed to know anything of war, could still make herself heard.

It was the most basic of all strategies. Once you lured your enemy into your trap, you followed up on your advantage. You didn’t wander away and let them get back to defensive ground.

Yet, that was exactly what Rumplestiltskin, master-plotter and deal-maker, was supposed to have done.  If he had truly given up on them, if all he wanted was their child, then he had won the moment she swallowed the potion that sped up her child’s birth.  All he had to do was whisk her away while she gave birth because _he was already there._

Then, the strange, pale woman—the woman with Belle’s face—made her counter-accusation.  Regina had done this, had weakened Belle and torn in her in two.

And Belle believed her.  There was never a doubt.  It was as if, when the woman spoke, she were listening to her own thoughts, her own feelings.

But, more than that, she _saw._ It was as if she were reliving a memory she had somehow forgotten.  She could _see_ Regina reaching to her chest, tearing out her red pulsing heart.  The queen would have studied it like a curious student—no, like a bad student, the sort who only looked through books to find the bits and pieces that fit whatever she had already decided was true or would help pass the test and ignored the rest.  That kind of magic wasn’t something Belle truly understood, but she knew Regina had never looked at a human heart except as a tool to get her own way.

This woman was part of her.  Belle didn’t question it.  Somehow, Regina was responsible.  More than that, though she didn’t understand why—though she knew it wasn’t what the woman had meant—a part of Belle was certain Regina was the reason she was here.  Regina was the reason she held her child in her arms months before it should have been time.

_I should feel angry._

She had felt as though she were stepping out of a fog, seeing what she had been blind to for so long.  But, that was all she could do.  She was still empty and drained.  She said nothing, did nothing as the stranger tried to tell her truths and make her accusations.  While Killian and Emma refused to believe a words she said, Belle couldn’t find the strength to tell them every word was true.  She felt nothing as the woman began to recite the story book rhyme, the one that would name her husband and summon him here if anything the woman said—if any of the things Belle now believed—were true.

And, then, the Blue Fairy was there, angry and afraid.

Anger Belle could understand.  A stranger had slipped past all of Blue’s defenses into the heart of what she was trying to defend.  But afraid?  Why afraid?  The pale woman was doing nothing—nothing except telling the truth.

What was Blue afraid she would say?  What was it she didn’t want Belle to know?

The thought should have been like sparks on dry tinder.  Belle knew— _knew_ —what she should feel, the anger, the suspicion, the need for answers. Instead, it was like fire falling into a cold sea, swallowed up in dark, empty waves.

“Stop her!” the fairy cried out.  But, she didn’t fight the stranger herself.  She didn’t so much as lift a hand against her.

 _Fairies are like demons,_ Belle thought.  _They have power only where it is given to them._

The pale woman knew this.  She didn’t stop.  Smiling triumphantly, she continued the rhyme.

But, she hadn’t been the one the Blue Fairy was speaking to.  Killian smiled (Belle remembered that smile.  It had been the way he grinned when he tried to kill her) and tore his hook through the woman’s stomach.

Belle screamed.

Pain ripped through her womb and the guts beyond.  Her son, startled, began to wail.

Killian didn’t notice.  Belle saw him grinning as the woman fell (she felt the pain as the woman tumbled to the ground, felt her hit the floor as fire burned through her insides, and the life bled away from her).

Emma looked pale and drained.  The brief spark of life that had come into her while she tried to help Belle during the birth seemed to have drained away. She took a step towards the woman then stopped, uncertain, not wanting to push Killian out of the way.

The Blue Fairy looked triumphant.

 _She will take my son,_ Belle thought.  The certainty burned through the pain.  The Blue Fairy would take her son and she would die without ever seeing him again.

Belle tried to find her strength, her courage, anything to fight off the terrible emptiness she was trapped in, but nothing came.  She was aware of voices talking, but they were far away.  They weren’t talking to her, anyway.  The room grew gray and dim.

 _We are one_. 

They weren’t Jekyll and Hyde, Belle thought, one real, the other not, where killing the illusion did nothing.  They were one. It didn’t matter who received the blow.  They would die together, and Belle couldn’t make herself fight to live.

Words came to her mind.  They were silent, softer than a thought.  Yet, if they had had a voice, she knew it would have been the same as the voice of the pale woman lying on the floor. 

_It is easy_

_To hate this painful world,_

_But how. . . ._

It trailed off.  _Because we are dying,_ Belle thought.  Yet, she didn’t need to be told.  She remembered the rest.

_How  can I leave_

_A world_

_That includes this child?_

She looked down at her son.  If she didn’t fight for him, he would be lost to her and to his father forever.  Rumple would fight for him as fiercely as he had fought for Bae but, Belle felt sure, whatever he did would be too late.

Unless she stopped it.  Unless she fixed everything she had set wrong.

“Rumplestiltskin,” Belle whispered, forcing the name through her lips.  “Rumplestiltskin.  Rumplestiltskin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote, "That’s a small thing. That’s my heart you hold in your hand." is from The Sorceress and the Cygnet by Patricia McKillip.
> 
> It is easy  
> To hate this painful world,  
> But how can I leave  
> A world  
> That includes this child?
> 
> Is by Izumi Shikibu, a Japanese noblewoman born in the 10th century, with translation done by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani.


	17. The Choice is Yours

Grumpy got on the phone with Doc.  Like he’d figured, no one had told Doc about Belle.  _Should’ve called him at the diner,_ Grumpy thought.  He knew—everyone knew—there was something wrong with Emma these days.  Personally, Grumpy didn’t think it was anything dumping a pirate wouldn’t fix.  Or he hadn’t till today.  Everything about this was wrong.  Having a baby wasn’t like hatching from an egg.  Women in the old world _died_ having babies.  So did women in this one if there weren’t doctors and medicine around. What was Emma thinking?

That’s what Doc wanted to know, only with a lot more yelling.  It turned out things had gotten a little dicey for Zelena when her pregnancy got sped up, and that was when there was a whole emergency room on hand to help out. 

Add that to the list of things that didn’t make sense.  Rumplestiltskin knew plenty about magic and babies.  He’d never let Belle go through this alone if it put her in danger. 

Doc agreed.  He told Grumpy to get the brothers together.  Between Dwarf axes and diamond dust, they ought to be able to get through whatever barriers the fairies had up around the convent, and Doc wasn’t letting anyone keep him from his patient.

“What about Gold?” Grumpy asked.  “Are we helping him break in or are we letting the fairies waste their time on him while we try to get in another way?”  Battle-wise, it was a good question.  They’d probably get through a lot faster working alongside Gold, but they’d be facing a pack of angry fairies as soon as they broke through.  Of course, they might be facing those anyway—and not have any Dark One providing cover.

But, they both knew that wasn’t the real question.  The real question was “Do we trust him?” and, behind that, “Do we trust him to help Belle?”

There was a long pause while Doc thought it over.  Whatever he decided, there’s be no going back from this.

“It’s the best way to get to Belle in time.  Yeah, we help him.”

“Blue won’t like it.”

Doc snorted. “Show me anything she’s liked in the past century.  We’re doing it.”

Grumpy hesitated.  It was what made sense, but. . . .  “What if we’re wrong?”

“We put an ax through him and apologize to everyone else.  Get going.”

A few minutes later, Grumpy was pulling up around the front of the convent.  It was easy to spot Gold.  He was where the all the lightning effects were.  There was also another car pulling up, but this one didn’t belong to any of his brothers.  As Grumpy parked his truck, he saw three people getting out of it.  There was a tall man who looked like he thought this was a casting call for _A Christmas Carol._   There was a schoolgirl standing by him, fourteen or fifteen years old, Grumpy guessed.  Beside her was a boy about the same age holding a blue rose.  It took Grumpy a minute to realize the boy was Henry.

Grumpy got out, hefting his ax out of its place in back.  Gold fixed him with a cold stare.  “Are you doing the Mother Superior’s dirty work?” Gold asked. “I’ll warn you now: Don’t get in my way.”

“I’m not here for Blue,” Grumpy said. “Doc’s coming.  He’s got a patient in there.  We figure you’re our best chance of getting in.”

The Dickens guy fixed Grumpy with an amused look.  “A patient.  Do you mean Bluebell?  Or her little twin?”

“What?  You know about Belle’s double?”

“Belle’s what?” Gold asked.

“Someone did a Jekyll-Hyde thing on Belle,” Grumpy said.

“My mom,” Henry said.  He looked pretty miserable.  He showed Gold the rose. “She had this in her crypt.  It’s part of her spell.”

“Wait a second,” the schoolgirl said. “You _saw_ her?  How?” She looked at Grumpy uncertainly.  “Do Dwarves have magic sight?”

“She got solid,” Grumpy said. “At Granny’s.” He floundered.  Babies and the messes they made coming into the world weren’t things he was used to talking to kids about. 

Gold’s eyes widened.  He looked at the rose, the blood draining from his face.  “Of course,” he whispered.  “ _Of course._   Why didn’t I—” The sorcerer whirled, his attention on the convent.

There was a list of hard and fast rules in Storybrooke.  You don’t eat apples the Evil Queen gives you.  Criticizing Granny’s lasagna where she could hear you was dangerous.

And Gold didn’t do fear. That one was carved in stone.  Because, when the Dark One starts looking scared, it’s already too late to start running.

He’d thought the sorcerer looked bad before.  But, whatever was going on now, he looked absolutely terrified.

“No,” he whispered.  “No, they can’t—”

Then, he vanished.  No puff of smoke.  He just wasn’t there.

Well, that couldn’t be good.

Grumpy adjusted his grip on his ax as he walked up to the barrier.  “Ok,” he said, getting ready to strike. “I guess we do this the hard way.”

X

Emma remembered what it was like to be alone and scared and pregnant.  The girls in juvvie all seemed to know horror stories about what could go wrong and they all felt obligated to share them.  One, Gail North, had been the worst.  She told Emma about a woman she’d heard who’d been serving time in prison.  When she went into labor early, the guards thought she was faking it and locked her up in solitary.

“They found her the next day, lying in a pool of her own blood.  Her and the baby were both dead,” Gail had said triumphantly, looking like she was already gloating over Emma’s dead body.

But, when Emma finally did go into labor, the guards took precautions, just in case Emma was dumb enough to try and make a break for it, but any idiot could tell their number one concern was getting her to the hospital before any of them had to deliver the baby. Nobody chained her to the hospital bed (another story she’d been told). The doctor didn’t even know she was a prison mom, not till after Henry was born and one of the nurses told him when she wouldn’t pick her son up—wouldn’t even look at him.

She couldn’t. Because, she knew, if she so much as looked at him, she would never be able to let him go.

So, why did all those stories seem real here in the convent?  No one was chaining Belle to a bed and, while the fairies seemed clueless about having babies, it wasn’t like they were locking Belle in a room and forgetting about her. 

Except it was.

Emma had been tired lately—too tired, though she didn’t know why.  But, an old, familiar, half-forgotten outrage blazed up in.  She told the fairies to get their act together.  Then, she told them _how_ they were going to get it together—what their job was and how to do it.

Once she got them moving, she turned her attention back to Belle, remembering everything she could from when she had Henry, and remembering what it felt like to have no one there for you.

Yeah, she knew what it felt like to be the patient.  What would really be useful right now would be feeling like a doctor.

But, no doctor showed up, just a fake nun whose knowledge of childbirth probably came from watching Call the Midwife.

And Emma, Emma who’d read a few booklets on having a baby over a decade ago and had some classes in first aid—and who was really regretting that she hadn’t watched Call the Midwife.

She remembered Ashley, white as a ghost, as she went into labor with Alexandra.  Ashley had been determined to keep her baby, no matter what the price.  Belle. . . .

 _Belle made her choice.  She wanted to be here,_ Emma thought.  _Didn’t she?_

She remembered the look of fear and betrayal on Belle’s face as she realized what Gold had done to her.  Emma had looked the same way when Neal sold her out for the watches all those years ago.

Except it hadn’t been Neal, had it?  It had been August, convincing Neal he was a danger to Emma just by being around her and swearing that he would look out for her.

Something tickled at the edge of Emma’s mind, a thought she couldn’t quite get ahold of.  She’d thought Neal was guilty for years when it hadn’t been him at all.  Belle thought Gold was guilty, but. . . .

Whatever it was slipped away before Emma could nail it down.

_Why did we bring Belle here?_

Belle had gone into labor and she’d said . . . she must have said. . . .   Even if she hadn’t, this had to be the only place safe from Gold and, if Belle wanted to give up her baby. . . .

She did want to.  Didn’t she?

Because, Emma wouldn’t have brought her here if that wasn’t what she wanted.

Would she?

_Everyone loves to tell you what can and can’t do.  Especially with a kid.  But, ultimately, whatever you’re considering doing . . . or giving up . . . the choice is yours._

It was what she’d told Ashley—Cinderella—when she didn’t know if she should keep her child or not.  It was what she knew she should tell Belle, now. 

Another thing Gail North had told her, one that was actually worth listening to, for a change.  “ _People say they’re your friends and tell you, whatever you choose, they’ll be there for you.  But, what they really mean is, they’ll be there if you make the choice they think you should, the one that makes it easiest for them.  Otherwise, adios, they don’t hang out with losers. They’ll leave all the hurting and bleeding to you.”_

_This is your choice, Belle.  If a pack of fairies don’t like it, that’s their problem._

Emma tried to say it, but the words drifted away and the anger seemed to go with it.  She tried to focus on the baby and Belle, but it was getting harder and harder. 

_If Belle were bleeding out, would I notice?_

It felt wrong—everything about this felt wrong.  But, Emma couldn’t say how.  It was like a strange dream.  The fairy, Killian, they seemed to be in a different story than Emma was, saying things and doing things that didn’t make sense

Then, a woman burst in, she was pale and streaked with blood.  She looked like she needed a doctor worse than Belle did.

But, Killian seemed to think she was some kind of monster.  He attacked her with his hook, grinning triumphantly as she sank to the ground.

 _I should feel something,_ Emma thought.  _Shouldn’t I?_

She remembered Gail.  “ _People die all the time.  Nobody cares.  Why should I?_ ”

 _Why_ should _I?_

She knew just asking the question proved something was wrong, even if she didn’t know how.

“Rumplestiltskin. . . .”

It was so faint, Emma doubted anyone else heard.  Everyone else was focused on the unconscious woman.  Blue was saying something to Killian, who was grinning horribly.  He knelt down beside the unconscious woman, raising his hook again.

_This is wrong.  This is all wrong._

Belle was too pale.  Her face was like chalk and her lips had turned a whitish-pink.

_When they checked on her the next day, she was dead, lying in a pool of her own blood._

“Rumplestiltskin. . . .”

Three times.  Saying the Dark One’s name three times was the way to summon him.

 _I should stop her,_ Emma thought.

_But, Rumplestiltskin will help Belle._

No, he shouldn’t be here.  No one wanted him here.  Not Emma.  Not Killian.  Not the fairies.  Not Belle.

Except she did.

_She doesn’t know what she’s doing._

Emma could stop her.  She knew she should stop her.  Except. . . .

_Everyone loves to tell you what can and can’t do.  Especially with a kid.  But, ultimately, whatever you’re considering doing . . . or giving up . . . the choice is yours._

Emma stood still, doing nothing as Belle silently mouthed the name a third time.

”Rumplestiltskin.”

Killian brought his hook down in a killing blow.  A hand caught him around the arm, yanking him up and throwing him across the room.

“I don’t think so, dearie,” Rumplestiltskin said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the plot progresses two inches. Sorry, I really meant to get this further along. At least, this is better than the earlier draft that had about half a millimeter of plot in six pages (that's why this one's late. I scrapped the earlier version. And the second version. And most of the third, although I gave up early on that one).
> 
> No quotes (unless you count Emma remembering what she'd told Ashley).


	18. In Her Own Words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm too tired to give this the reread it deserves and too stubborn not to post it tonight. Please, feel free to point out major errors.

Belle called, and Rumplestiltskin came.

He barely absorbed what Henry had told him, holding up the blue rose as proof while Leroy talked about Belle’s doppelganger, before he heard his name.

Belle was calling for him.

Belle was dying.

He was the Dark One.  It was part and parcel of that to recognize a desperate soul—and recognize the source of that desperation.  He could hear the life draining out of Belle’s voice as she spoke his name.

She’d called his name once, but that wasn’t enough.  To pass Blue’s defenses, he needed to be well and truly summoned by someone inside, someone with a right to be there.  Belle had been let in at Blue’s orders—at her command, if he knew that blue-blooded insect.  But, she’d only called him once.

No, twice.  He heard his name again.  Her voice was growing weaker.

_Call me again.  You can do it.  Please, Belle, call me again._

The seconds dragged by silently.  Nothing.

_Rumple . . . stiltskin._

The fairies’ barrier vanished as if it weren’t even there.  With a flick of his will, Rumplestiltskin found himself in a nun’s cell, standing beside Belle.  He smelled blood.  Hook was bent down over a collapsed figure on the floor, another woman lying in a pool of her own blood.  Hook’s bloodstained namesake was raised, ready to strike.  The woman was . . . also Belle.

Rumplestiltskin grabbed Hook by the wrist.  “I don’t think so, dearie,” he said, throwing him across the (admittedly, rather small) room.  His head hit the plaster with a rather satisfying _thunk._ His eyes rolled up, and he collapsed in an unconscious heap.

Rumplestiltskin ignored him.  Also, because he had no choice, he paid no more attention to Blue than he had to.  He was facing towards her as he knelt down beside the other Belle, even though it practically had him sitting on another fairy, lying unconscious on the floor.  It looked like she had lost a fight with Grumpy’s friend, Astrid.  It was all right for now, but things might get a bit awkward if she woke up. 

_If I cared about being surrounded by enemies armed with magic, I wouldn’t be in the heart of the fairies’ stronghold, would I?_

Quickly, he stretched out his arcane senses, examining Belle’s injuries.  At least, there was no hint of magic mixed into them, no hidden curses poisoning her or tearing her apart—not more than Regina’s spell, splitting her in two, had already done.  But, simple, mortal malice was bad enough.

A life for a life, that was what dark magic said. But, as Rumplestiltskin often said back, every deal has a loophole. Knitting a few tears back together was simple work for a spinner and cost only the slightest price in magic.  Tidying a few other things up, putting them back where they belonged, that was just a touch of housekeeping.  That some of what he was cleaning was blood instead of a few knick-knacks out of place was beside the point.

He kept that firmly in his mind as he worked, shaping the costs this magic would invoke and doing his best to ignore the voice screaming at the back of his mind.

_This is my fault.  This is all my fault._

He’d failed Belle.  Just as he always did.  How could he have missed this?  He’d been there at the beginning, when Jekyll was first trying to tear his soul in two.  He’d known at a glance when Regina had done the same.  It had surprised him that she seemed to be managing as well as she did, but he supposed the cost would catch up with her eventually.  It always did.

And he’d been too wrapped up in his own problems to see what was right in front of him. 

He’d always known Belle would leave him and he’d been prepared to let her go—or he had been before she meant to take their child with her.  But, it hadn’t surprised him.  None of this had surprised him.  So, he hadn’t stopped to think.  He hadn’t stopped to think _why_ she would do this now, after all they’d been through—or why do it in this way.

When Belle had left him the first time—or, to be more precise, when he’d thrown her out—she’d stopped long enough to tell him exactly what she thought about it and what she thought of the lies he was telling himself to justify it.  When he’d been dying after the curse had been torn out of him, Belle had sat beside him, day after day, speaking, reading, holding him up with her words.

But, when she’d fled with their child, she’d wanted to give him nothing but silence.

_I should have known. I should have seen. Instead, I failed her. Again._

Not that it mattered.  All that mattered now was saving Belle.  As he closed the last of her wounds, he sent a little jolt of adrenaline through her (there was no price for that little bit of magic.  That was what his curse fed on, the sudden rush of fear and terror).  She opened her eyes and looked at him as if he were a puzzle she couldn’t quite make sense of.

_That makes two of us, dearie._

”Is it . . . Rumpelstiltskin?”

“It’s me, sweetheart,” he said, helping her sit up.

The Blue Fairy seemed to finally find her tongue.  “You don’t belong here,” she said.  “You’re not wanted.  Get out!”

He felt the slight tog of magic.  The queen of buzzing vermin was trying to exorcise him.  As if she could. 

“Oh, no, dearie.  I come where I’m called, remember? I have a right to be here. You can’t just get rid of me.” He smirked at Blue’s consternation but he could feel her magic building.  He helped the pale-haired Belle up.  She was weak and shaky.  He let her lean against him. 

The dark-haired Belle lay in her borrowed bed, still unconscious.  Rumplestiltskin frowned.  She should have begun to recover when her other half did.  He could see she was breathing easily and her color had improved, but her eyes didn’t open.  Emma sat beside her on the bed, helping to prop up the baby in her arms.

Emma looked dazed, as if she didn’t really understand what was happening around her.  She nodded towards the fair-haired Belle.  “She’s like Hyde, isn’t she? You can’t kill her, not really.”

 “She’s not at all like him,” Rumplestiltskin snapped.  Inwardly, he felt a chill.  _You can’t kill her, not really._ She said it so impersonally.  Belle had been nearly dead moments before, and Emma talked as if it didn’t matter. This wasn’t the Emma Swan he knew, the woman who fought dragons in their dens and would beat evil witches with her bare hands if better options weren’t available.  What hearts besides Belle’s had Regina been robbing?  “Look at Belle.  Does she look unharmed to you?”

Emma looked.  Then, she turned to the pale Belle, studying her.  Her face was a mirror of confusion.  “I don’t understand.  Which one of them’s real?”

“They’re both real,” Rumplestiltskin said. “They share one life between them.  You almost snuffed it out.”  He watched Emma carefully, gauging her reaction.  She looked like a lost child, unable to understand and beginning to be terrified of her ignorance.

Blue jumped in before Emma could finish working that out.  “But, this is terrible!” she said, reeking of fake sincerity. “We had no idea—”

Rumplestiltskin snorted derisively.  “Didn’t you?  You’re much closer to the queen than I am these days.  And you were quick enough to make use of Belle’s weakness, weren’t you?  But, you had no idea?” He hadn’t either, not till he had his face rubbed in the truth, but he refused to give her the benefit of the doubt, not when she’d been so quick to take advantage of it.

“We were trying to help,” Blue said primly. She turned to Emma, oozing honesty. “We still are. Please, Emma, the child needs help.” She smiled, and Rumplestiltskin felt whatever spell she’d been preparing unfurl and strike.  He braced for it, ready for her attack.  But, nothing touched him. 

Blue smiled at Emma, looking triumphant.  She held out her arms.  “Please, Emma, give me the child.”

“Don’t touch him,” Rumplestiltskin said. He tried to lunge forward, but it was like being weighed down with lead.  He looked at Blue.  She couldn’t move towards Belle either, but he saw the smirk on her face.  This was what Blue had wanted. 

For all their differences, there were some rules that applied to fairies as much as they did to him.  Neither of them could _steal_ a child but (as Bae had found out to his cost) they both had rather liberal rules about _taking_ them.

If Belle had been just another, normal, magicless woman whose child he was trying to take, this was what would happen.  He would have to wait, wait for him to make a promise or say a word he could twist to his own ends—or hand him the child.

Or, as Blue was doing, trick another into giving the child to her.

That’s why Belle slept.  Drained and exhausted, it must have only taken a feather touch of Blue’s magic to keep her from waking.  Belle understood these things and she had summoned him here.  Blue couldn’t trust her to just fall into line and hand over her son, not any more. 

So, she was trying to make Emma do it instead.  

Emma was already taking the baby out of Belle’s limp arms.

“Don’t,” the other Belle said.  “Don’t.”  She struggled for a moment.  “It is written: Who steals a living soul, whether to sell or keep, shall die.”

Blue rolled her eyes.  “This is hardly stealing.  Belle wanted her child safe, Emma.  Give him to me.”

“I notice you don’t promise to keep him safe,” Rumplestiltskin said.

“What else would I do? Why else would I do this?”

The pale-haired Belle fixed her eyes coldly on Blue.  “You want what may only be given, not taken or bought, what the sinner desires—but the saint does not.”

Emma hesitated.  Rumplestiltskin thought the words were getting through to her.  Blue pursed her lips.  “I am hardly a sinner,” she said primly. She looked at Emma, her eyes warm and maternal, the perfect image of the loving mother every child in foster care must spend her life dreaming of.  “You know I only want to help, Emma.  Give me the child.”

Emma wavered.  “He’s Gold’s son.”

“He’s the Dark One.  You fought to keep Ashley’s baby away from him.  He’s the reason you grew up alone.  Are you going to give another child to him?”

“He—he just saved that woman’s life.”

“And you know the cost of that magic, Emma.  A life for a life.  Who do you think he’s going to kill to pay for that?  You can’t give him that child, but I can protect him.  Give him to me.”

“No,” Rumplestiltskin said, searching for words that would get through to her.  “ _No._ ”

“Why?” Emma said. “Why should I believe anything you say?”

“Enough of this,” the Shadow said.  “Enough.”

X

The Shadow thought she was going to die.  She’d seen enough of the dead and dying during the Ogre War to know when the pirate dealt her a death blow.  She would die and her other half with her.  With their deaths, the fairies would lay claim to the poor babe whose mother had died in their tender care.

Instead, she had woken up to see her husband looking down at her.  If she was still weak and sore where torn skin must have been knit together, the terrible agony Hook had left her in was gone.  She thought they were done.  Rumplestiltskin was here.  He understood what had happened.  They would claim their child, he would make her whole again, and all this would be over.

Instead, the Mother Superior had used some kind of spell.  The Shadow didn’t understand it, but she could see the results.  Rumplestiltskin couldn’t take their child.  Neither could the Blue Star.  But, Emma could hand the baby to either one of them—and no prizes for guessing who the mother superior thought would win.  Even if Emma’s soul were whole, the savior might pick the Blue Fairy.  With her soul as empty and drained as Belle’s how could she not?

Rumple, no matter how silver-tongued he might be, wouldn’t win against Emma’s mistrust.  The Shadow—Belle—might.

She broke away from him, trying not to totter too much as she stepped towards Emma.  She tried to find words Emma would hear.  She thought of Hester Prynne, begging the elders of Salem not to take her child from her and of the mighty queen, Titania, telling Oberon why she would not part with her foster-son.  But, none of those words would do. 

“Search your feelings,” the Shadow tried.  “You know it to be true.”

Emma shook her head.  She didn’t even seem to recognize the quote.  How much had Regina taken from her?  “All that tells me is you believe it, and you’re just a doll Gold made, aren’t you?”

The Shadow had heard the pirate call her that but she thought Emma had understood what she told her.  Maybe she had and had already forgotten it. 

“I am my own self,” the Shadow said.  “Truth. . . .” she began, but let it trail off.  Despite her power, Emma had never trusted truth.  Lies were what she truly understood.  But, where could the Shadow find words to say that?  Memories rose up of things she’d read, things she’d heard.  They weren’t what she needed, not exactly.  But . . . could she change them?  Shift them, just a little, to fit her need?

She had to try. “Lies have a quality all their own,” she said, her voice shaking.  She felt as if she had jumped off a cliff, spinning in darkness and not knowing when the ground would hit her.  “So does truth.  You know that these are not lies.”

“You can’t give Gold that baby, Emma!” the fairy cried out.  “You _can’t._   We’re the only ones who can keep him safe.”

“She’s right,” Emma said.  “Who in their right mind gives Gold a baby?”

“I hoped the father’s kind care would save his son,” the Shadow said, taking another step towards Emma.  “Have you—have you—” The world swirled around her, a place of madness with no sure anchors as she tried to find her own words.  “ _It is written!_ ” she gasped out, trying to steady herself.  “In the day thou wast born—” She looked at the cord still hanging from Belle’s son— _her_ son’s—middle.

_“Thy navel was not cut,_

_Neither wast thou was washed nor swaddled at all._

_None eye pitied thee,_

_To do any of these unto thee,_

_To have compassion upon thee;_

_But thou wast cast out in the open field,_

_To the loathing of thy person,_

_In the day that thou wast born._

_“And when I passed by thee,_

_And saw thee_

_Polluted in thine own blood,_

_I said unto thee_

_When thou wast in thy blood,_

_Live_.”

She stopped, not knowing if she sounded like a mad woman (which she was) or if anything she said was getting through.  She took one more step towards Emma.  “Be kind,” she whispered, the words burning in her throat.  “Though it never helps you in return. I assure you, someday you will be glad to know that you were kind to something once.”

For a moment, something glittered in her eyes, and the Shadow thought she saw the old Emma looking back at her.  Then, it was gone.

“No,” Emma said.  She turned towards Blue.

And the Shadow brought her foot down hard on Emma’s foot.  She hadn’t worn high heels for so many years without learning exactly where a foot could hurt the most. 

While Emma gaped and doubled over, she grabbed her son out of her arms.  Perhaps the old Emma could have fought her off—fought her off and tossed her into a wall to join the rest of the comatose floor coverings.  This one never saw the attack coming.

“No!” the Blue Fairy cried out.  She tried to lunge towards the Shadow, but her spell still held.  She couldn’t take what wasn’t offered. 

“God gave me the child!” the Shadow said.  “He gave him in requital of all things else which ye had taken from me!” It was Regina who had taken everything from her.  But, given what the mother superior had tried to steal from her and how she had dragged her other self here, barely caring if she lived or died, the Shadow let the quote stand. “Ye shall not take him!  Look thou to it!  I will not lose the child! Look to it!  The fairy land buys not the child of me.  I will not part with him.”

But, it wasn’t enough.  Emma was recovering.  She might not be what she was, but she was stronger than the Shadow, who could barely stand.  The Shadow didn’t know if the laws controlling the fairies would keep them from taking a child stolen from his mother’s arms, but she feared they might.  Emma had already gotten between the Shadow and her husband.  She couldn’t get to him.

 _Words,_ she thought, remembering something Rumplestiltskin had said.   _I like small weapons, you see. The needle, the pen, the fine point of a deal.  Subtlety._

It wasn’t Regina’s style.  She’d tried to steal words from Belle, along with everything else, but she’d lost interest in them quickly enough, leaving them to pool and congeal inside her.  But, they were still only borrowed words, remembered words.  For this, she needed her own.

“R-Rumplestiltskin.” Yes, she could say his name.  How many tales spoke it?  She didn’t have to use all their words to say it.  “Rumplestiltskin—y-your son—” Words swirled through her mind, a hurricane of tales and proverbs.  _Listen, my son, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. The child is father to the man.  That would hang us, every mother’s son. . . ._

 _No, I need my own words.  My_ own _words._

“Rumplestiltskin, this is your son!  I give him to you!  Take him and keep him safe!”

In a proper story, this would be where she heard the Blue Star scream, like a ghost caught out at sunrise.  There was nothing so dramatic.  But, the door to the room did burst open, and Henry ran in.  The Hatter, his daughter, and a small army of dwarves behind him.  The boy held out the blue rose to her.  Balancing her son in one arm, she reached out to take it from him. 

Thorns, burning, cold as ice, dug into her palm.  The world shifted again around her, tearing itself apart, broken pieces trying to come together.  She fell back against the bed.

_She was screaming at Rumplestiltskin from the deck of the Jolly Roger.  She walked away from him at the wishing well.  She watched through glass and water, helpless to reach out or speak. Her body swelled with the child whose time could not have come yet and she knew Rumplestiltskin had lied.  The pain of the queen’s spell tore her away from the Hatter as the truth was finally explained._

_Her body ached from birth, from the way Hook had torn her apart, from being put back together._

_Belle, Bloodbell, Bluebell, opened her eyes. She was lying on her borrowed bed—Astrid’s bed—her son still clutched tight in her arms.  Her husband beside her._

“Belle?”  Rumplestiltskin said.  “Belle, are you all right?  Are you. . . ?”  He trailed off.  Even for Rumplestiltskin, some things were hard to find the right words for. 

Not that it mattered. Belle understood what he meant.  “Yes,” she said.  “I’m me.  All of me.”  She looked at Emma.  “Not that that goes for everyone here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has a major quote infestation. 
> 
> Quotes:
> 
> “Is it Rumpelstiltskin?” From many versions of the story where the Miller’s Daughter says this while guessing Rumpelstiltskin’s name--which is why Shadow Belle uses the traditional spelling found in the books she would be quoting, because I’m sure Rumple can see spelling :-) 
> 
> “Don’t” from lots of things that say “Don’t.”
> 
> “It is written” from lots of things that say “It is written.” However, if you need a more precise source, I would say it’s from Creatures of Light and Darkness by Zelazny, where a man is having a conversation with what may be a god of ancient Egypt.  
> “It is written that you must pick it up.”  
> “Where? How?”  
> “I have written it, I—”
> 
> “Who steals a living soul, whether to sell or keep, shall die” is a very rough version of Exodus 26:16. The King James version reads, “And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.” 
> 
> “You want what may only be given, not taken or bought, what the sinner desires—but the saint does not.” This is an old riddle. The traditional answer is not “Baby Gold” but “Forgiveness.”
> 
> Like “Don’t,” “Enough of this” and “Enough” is me letting the Shadow start using common phrases found in numerous books, plays, and movies. 
> 
> If anyone didn’t recognize, “Search your feelings. You know it to be true,” please, go watch The Empire Strikes Back right now.
> 
> “I am my own self,” is from a few different fairy legends where a human child meets a fairy child and claims this as his or her name. When an accident happens and the fairy child cries out, the mother asks who has hurt him/her. The fairy child says, “My own self!” 
> 
> “Lies have a quality all their own,” and “So does truth. You know that these are not lies.” Is adapted from the movie Heaven Can Wait. The actual quote, before Shadow Belle managed her biggest alteration to date, is, “Life has a quality all its own a certain feeling. So do dreams. You know that this is not life. And you know now that this is not a dream.”
> 
> “I hoped the father’s kind care would save his son,” is altered from the play Ion by Euripedes. The original line in the translation I read, spoken about a child of the god Apollo, is “Hope the god’s kind care would save his son.” 
> 
> The poem Belle quoted is actually from the King James version (what can I say? I like the King James version) of Ezekiel 16:3-6.
> 
> “Be kind,” “Though it never helps you in return. I assure you, someday you will be glad to know that you were kind to something once.” Is from the short story, “A Guide for Young Ladies Entering the Service of the Fairies,” by Rosamund Hodge. The original reads:  
> Be kind to the creature that guards your door. Do not mock its broken, bleeding face.  
> It will never help you in return. But I assure you, someday you will be glad to know that you were kind to something once.
> 
> “God gave me the child”. “He gave him in requital of all things else which ye had taken from me.” “Ye shall not take him! Look thou to it! I will not lose the child! Look to it! I will not part with him.” Is from The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne.
> 
> “The fairy land buys not the child of me.” Is from Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare.


	19. Small Things

Belle gripped her husband’s hand tight as she lay in the hospital bed, smiling up at him.  Her mind was still whirling.  It was a little like when her true memories had returned after being Lacey.  But, that had been a set of false memories—false childhood, false family, false life—set in a world she’d never even lived in until the curse.  These were memories of the same times—often, the same events, witnessed from different angles, with different feelings and thoughts.  When Jekyll tried to kill her, she remembered striking him and trying to get away—and she remembered watching it all unfold, trying to get free and stop him.  She remembered killing him and staring at his dead body, not knowing how he’d died. 

For months, she’d been confused and afraid, and that had driven everything she’d done, mistake after terrified mistake.

At the same time, she’d fought desperately against the magic draining her, doing everything she could to strike back against it, to reach out to a world that couldn’t see her—that couldn’t even hear her except in confused, broken phrases.

It made her dizzy just trying to think about it.

“It’s all right,” Rumple said, squeezing her hand.

He had been with her when she . . . _merged_ , Belle decided, for lack of a better word, since there wasn’t one for feeling like a tossed salad with all your parts jumbled together.  A salad that was still being tossed, nothing staying in the same place long enough for her to know where it should be.

When it happened, Belle remembered the look of dismay on the Blue Fairy’s face.  _She knew,_ Belle thought.  _She knew all along and she didn’t want me back in one piece again._

Rumplestiltskin saw the same thing Belle did.  He had glared murderously at the Blue Fairy but spoke with an icy calm.  “You’ve overstepped your bounds,” he said, murder written over every inch of him.  “I will not let it stand.”

Then, still holding their son, he had put his free hand on her shoulder.  There was a swirl of purple mist with golden sparkles, and they were in Storybrooke’s hospital—all of them, the Dwarves, Henry, Emma, Jefferson and his daughter, even Astrid.  Since Astrid was a fairy and had been lying unconscious on the floor, Belle couldn’t help wondering how he had known to take her with them instead of leaving her to the Blue Fairy’s not-so-tender mercies. Blue herself, Killian, and that horrifying excuse for a midwife, Fuschia, had been left behind.

Doc had wasted no time whisking Belle and her son away to an examining room. Since Rumple wasn’t going to put down the baby, he came along, taking only a moment to quickly draw Henry aside and speak to him.  He’d watched Belle anxiously while Doc worked but (mostly) stayed out of his way. 

“You’re being awfully cooperative,” Doc said.  “Why?”

“I’m letting you deal with the mundane problems,” Rumple said, his gaze fixed on Belle. “I’m dealing with the other ones.”  

Doc’s eyes grew wide and he was a bit more subdued after that.  When he finished up and gave mother and son a clean bill of health, he paused, waiting to see if Rumplestiltskin had anything to add.  Rumple, however, merely nodded.

When Doc left, Belle asked. “Are there other problems?”

“Not that I can see,” Rumple said. That didn’t sound like a ringing endorsement to Belle. He seemed to realize this and quickly added, “Everything seems to be knitting back together.  Which is what I would expect.  Who you are, your heart, your soul, it _wants_ to be whole.”

“It’s confusing,” Belle admitted.  “I remember the same things in two ways, what one part of me felt and thought was completely different from what the other part was feeling.  It’s . . . disorienting.” It was more than disorienting.  She’d turned on Rumple, ignored her true friends, listened to false ones, and nearly destroyed her own son.  But, at the same time, she’d been doing everything she could to reach out to them, to save them. 

“It’s normal,” Rumplestiltskin said. “It’s what most people feel all the time.  Fears, hopes, needs, things tugging you a thousand ways at once.  It’s just that most of us can only make one choice at a time.”

“I still made the wrong one.”  And the right one.  But, it was the wrong one that haunted her.  And the wrong one had had hands and feet to get things done.

And her son.  It had had her son.

“You made the best choice you could—the best choices.  All at the same time.”  He looked down at their son, who reached for his nose. Rumplestiltskin smiled at him.  “When—when the soldiers were coming for Bae,” he started then stopped, old guilt and pain in his eyes.  All these centuries, and it still hurt to talk about it.

Belle wondered how long the pain inside of her would last. 

But, Rumple looked at her, steeled himself, and went on.  “I was afraid.  I wanted—I _had_ to save him.  But, I didn’t know how.  I was terrified.  Of losing him.  Of making things worse.” The war had become a slaughterhouse, an meat grinder where children were sent to their deaths to buy the “real” soldiers a little more time.  But, there were ways to make things worse.  There were _always_ ways to make things worse.  “Do you think I don’t know what I would have done if I’d been cut in two, the way you were?” Rumple said.  “The part of me that was afraid would have cowered and done nothing.”

“The other part would have gnawed through stone walls to save him,” Belle said.

Rumplestiltskin shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. 

Belle wasn’t letting him off that easily.  “You saved me.”

He gave her that lopsided, self-depreciating smile of his.  “You saved yourself.  All I did was tidy up a bit at the end.  It was a small thing.”

Belle reached out and touched their son.  “That’s a small thing.  That’s my heart you hold in your hand.” She’d slipped into quoting books again.  She wondered how long that would be going on, before she was comfortable with her own voice again.  “Why couldn’t the part of me Regina was stealing from speak?  Not in my own words?”

Rumplestiltskin’s eyes darkened.  “Regina never stole your way with words.  She left that with the other half of you.  I suppose she never valued anything you had to say.”

There was the sound of someone clearing his throat by the door.  Belle looked up and saw Henry.  She didn’t think he’d heard what they said about Regina, but he looked frighteningly woebegone.  She remembered standing invisibly by him at Jefferson’s and what had been said.  Henry was the one who had brought her her rose.  He knew what Regina had done to her.

“Grandpa?” he said uncertainly, as if he expected Rumplestiltskin to knock him down for speaking to him, which was strange.  Belle remembered the conversations she’d heard between Henry and Grace when she was still trapped.  Perhaps what worried him was how Rumplestiltskin would react to Henry calling him grandpa again.

If Henry thought he had a reason to be worried, he was wrong.  Rumplestiltskin looked at him with the same warmth he reserved for all his family. “Henry, are they here?”

Henry nodded.  “They’re coming.  Is—is everything all right?”  He looked at the baby then at Belle.  “What my mom—what Regina did—They’re OK?”

“They’re fine, Henry,” Rumplestiltskin assured him.  “Do you want to say hello to your new uncle?”

Henry looked uncertain.  Guilt was still eating away at him.  But, he came into the room and walked towards the bed.  He stopped and looked at Belle.  “Are _you_ OK with—with—”

Henry had a hard time articulating all his sins, Belle thought.  They were far less than hers, even if his soul had been whole.  Not that this was the moment to discuss that. 

“It’s fine,” she told Henry and couldn’t help smiling.  “I think he has your eyes.”

Henry put out his finger to the baby, who promptly grabbed it and made a cooing noise, proud of himself or just laughing.  “What’s his name?” Henry asked.

“We haven’t decided yet,” Belle said.  That was another thing she’d come close to stealing from Rumplestiltskin.  “Maybe a family name?” she asked Rumplestiltskin. 

Rumple grimaced.  “I don’t think we want to use any names from my side of the family,” he said.  “What about Oliver?  For Oliver de Genne, wisest of the Twelve Champions of Avonlea?”

“Twelve Champions?” Henry said.  “I don’t know that story.”

“It’s in _The Song of Roland_ in this world,” Rumplestiltskin said.  “Not that they got it right.  What really happened is—”

“Gold!” the familiar, strident voice of their beloved sheriff echoed down the corridor. She may have had a moment of her old humanity in the convent, but that had dried up the last of her supply of the milk of human kindness by the sound of it.  “What do you think you’re doing?” She came striding into the room, her mother and father in lockstep behind her. 

“Well, I was thinking you were going to be reasonable,” Rumple said.  “But, we can see how that worked.”

“You kidnapped Belle out of the convent—”

“No, I took a woman who had just had a baby in _appalling_ circumstances to the emergency room after _you_ kidnapped her.”

“Me?  What are you talking about?  I didn’t—”

The hollowed out, empty Belle who had been wandering around Storybrooke the past few months had spent much of that time feeling angry, but it had nearly all been directed at Rumplestiltskin.  Now she was whole, she found she was still angry, but there were better targets.

“You did,” Belle said.  “I was terrified and didn’t know what was going on, and you dragged me off to the convent without even asking what I wanted.”

Emma gaped.  It had been over a year—before Bae had died—since Belle had argued with her.  “Rumplestiltskin used magic on you,” Emma said.  “Blue could protect you—”

“Rumplestiltskin did nothing of the kind.  What I _needed_ was a doctor,” Belle snapped.  “Do you even know how many things can go wrong when a baby is being born?”

“Hey, you’re not the only one here who’s had a baby.”

“Have you delivered them?  Do you even know what placenta previa is?  Or the symptoms of toxemia?  What if the baby is breech?  Or if the cord comes first?  What would you have done then, Emma?  Held my hand and told me it would be all right?”

“The fairies would have—”

“The fairies wanted my baby.  They didn’t seem to care much about me.”

Snow spoke up.  “The Blue Fairy would never—”

“Yes, she would.  And she did,” Belle said. “Ask your daughter.  She was there.”

Emma looked troubled.  Belle felt a stab of pity for her.  She remembered all the mad, inexplicable decisions she’d made these past few weeks (why had she gone to _Hook_ for help, out of all the people in Storybrooke?).  She’d heard stories of the strange mistakes travelers lost in the snow made as they slowly froze to death.  There’d been a trapper lost in the mountains who had cast aside the furs he was carrying.  Then, one by one, he’d thrown away his clothing, starting with his coat, because it was too heavy and dragged him down as he fought his way through the snow.  The men who found him had been able to easily follow the trail he’d left when they went searching for him.  If someone had stopped him and forced him to explain why he thought that was a good idea, he would probably look just as confused as Emma.

“She—she didn’t really seem ready for having a baby,” Emma said.  “She locked Doc outside of the convent after we got Belle there.”

“People make mistakes,” Snow said.  “That’s no reason to be cruel to them.”

Telling the truth seemed to be Snow’s definition of being cruel, these days.  After what Blue had done, that was every reason.  Especially since it hadn’t been a mistake.  Blue had meant every bit of it.

Belle had seen the look on Rumple’s face when they left the convent.  If he’d stayed instead of getting all of them out, he might have shown Snow what cruelty was all about. Not that Belle would approve.  Not even now.

Or she thought she wouldn’t.  She hoped Rumple wouldn’t give her the chance to find out if she might change her mind about that.

For now, Rumple seemed content to trade bars with the Charmings. It was an old game, almost a friendly one compared to some of the things he could be doing.  “Oh, in my experience, Snow White, _mistakes_ are every reason to be cruel to people.  Especially, I’ve noticed, when _you’re_ the ones being cruel.  Though that’s neither here nor there.  We have other matters to attend to.  Henry?”

Reluctantly, Henry pulled out his cell phone.  “Are you sure. . . ?”

“You’re the author,” Rumplestiltskin said.  His sarcasm had vanished as if it had never been there.  He was looking at Henry the same way the healers during the Ogre War had looked at their patients’ families when it was time to tell them how bad the injuries were.   “You tell me how this story ends.”

Henry got out his cell phone and made a call.  “Mom?” he said.  “Where are you?”  His hand shook.  “Mom, I’m at the hospital.  You need to come here.”  Henry swallowed bile.  “Please, mom!” Then, he hung up and turned off the phone.

 _Oh, Henry,_  Belle thought, her heart breaking for him.

 _Rumple, how could you ask him to do this?_  But, she knew what his answer would be.  Who else could he ask?  Who else would Regina come running for?

They didn’t even have time to draw breath before the room began to fill with blue and black smoke.  When it cleared, Regina Mills stood in the room.

Rumplestiltskin let go of Belle’s hand.  The gold bracelet he’d made, the one that would track her no matter where she went or what world she fled to, was in his hand.  He closed his fingers over it.  When he opened them, there was nothing but a small pile of gold dust.  He blew it towards Regina, like dandelion fluff.  It surrounded her then closed in, slithering across her.  Before she could hurl a fireball, Regina was trapped in chains of gold.

Rumplestiltskin stepped towards her.  “You have things that aren’t yours, Regina,” he said. “Time to give them back.  Even if we have to cut them out of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sigh, I just can't stop using quotes, can I?
> 
> "That’s a small thing. That’s my heart you hold in your hand.” is from The Sorceress and the Cygnet, by Patricia McKillip.
> 
> And the name Oliver, besides being a reference to the smartest of the knights in The Song of Roland is also a little shout out for The Unresolved by Of_Princes_and_Savages.


	20. Picking Up the Pieces

Part of Rumplestiltskin wanted to get Victor to check on Belle.  The good doctor might have his . . . hmm, well, call them eccentricities, especially when it came to body parts he thought no one else needed.  But, Victor would as soon part with his arm as harm Belle.  Literally.

However, Doc was the doctor Belle had chosen.  He’d been the one to help her in the early stages of this pregnancy (before everything went insane) and, unlike Victor, he wasn’t going to be thrown by little things like a magically sped up birth.  Victor had a tendency to get bogged down in whether something was an insult to science (even if it was an insult he’d dealt with before) when he should be focused on patients.

And Doc focused on patients to the point that he would take on Blue and fight his way through a magical barrier to get to one.  Rumplestiltskin couldn’t ignore that.

He was following Doc and Belle into a treatment room when Henry caught up with him.  “Grandpa—” he started then stopped, flushing.  “Can—can I still call you that?”

Rumplestiltskin saw the guilt in the boy’s eyes.  He found himself remembering times Bae had been in trouble, back before his curse when trouble meant simpler things.  It was the exact, same look.  Seeing it was like a heavy weight in his chest.

“Yes, you can still call me that.”

The words didn’t make the look go away.  If anything, it was worse.  “You know what Mom—what Regina did to Belle?”

The look in Henry’s eyes shifted, though he still looked painfully like his father.  There was a look a child had when he knew the parent he loved no longer cared about hurting others. 

“Yes,” Rumplestiltskin said softly.  “I know.”

“She—she stole—she was stealing something from Belle.  From her heart—her soul.”  He looked Rumplestiltskin in the eye, his face tormented.  “Only, it wasn’t just Belle, was it?”

It wasn’t his curse that made Rumplestiltskin want to lie, to assure Bae’s son he was wrong, what he suspected—what he dreaded—it was something Regina would never even dream of doing.  If there was any chance Henry would believe it, maybe he would have.  But, the boy already knew the truth.

“Yes, she’s been stealing from Emma.  And Snow and David.  Perhaps others.”

“We have to stop her.”

Rumplestiltskin knew that.  He’d barely had time to think about it since he’d seen the two women in the convent, Belle and . . . Belle.  And he’d known what Regina had done. 

Before that, he’d wondered how Regina managed.  Her soul was split in two.  The “Evil Queen” wasn’t just darkness and evil.  She had Regina’s stubbornness and strength, the relentless will that had kept her fighting when almost anyone else would have given up.  She may have fought for revenge, to destroy all the people she was jealous of and blamed for her problems.  But, that fighting spirit itself wasn’t evil.  Snow and Emma had the same fire burning in them.  But, they also had lines they wouldn’t cross—or wouldn’t until recently.  And, Rumplestiltskin admitted grudgingly, he supposed he couldn’t blame them under the circumstances.

Regina didn’t see that.  She didn’t see how close Snow White had come to making her own, dark choices or how she had turned back from them.  Instead, Regina told Rumplestiltskin how Snow White had it easy.  When her father was murdered, when she was driven out of her home, when she had lived life on the run, afraid to ask for help for fear of what it could cost people, she’d had it _easy._

When the curse was broken, Regina said the same things all over again.  It was easy for Emma.  It was easy for Snow.  It was easy for everyone who was born with the strength Regina had never had.

Rumplestiltskin looked at the small child in his arms, so tiny and frail.  No one is born strong, he wanted to tell Regina.  We are all born small and weak.  We struggle, we fight, and, if we are very lucky, in time we find the power to protect those who depend on us in time for it to do some good.

Regina couldn’t be bothered with that.  So, she stole it and left others to pay—as Belle and his son had paid.

“I’ll deal with her,” Rumplestiltskin said.  He tried to keep his voice as gentle as he could, to remind himself that this was still his grandson’s mother.  Whatever she’d done, he had to remember that.

“You won’t do it alone, Grandpa,” Henry said.  He looked scared but determined.  For a moment, it wasn’t Bae he reminded him of, it was himself when he’d taken the hammer to his leg to save his son.  “We need to get Mom here before she finds out we know about Belle.” Henry faltered.  “She—she’ll come if she thinks I’m in trouble,” he said.  He sounded utterly lost and alone.

Rumplestiltskin remembered the end of the Ogre War, when he had gone to the battlefield and faced the enemy down.  He’d done it to save children no older than Henry.  “Henry, you don’t have to—”

“Yeah, I do,” Henry said. He gave Rumplestiltskin a weak, lopsided smile.  “It’s not just you.  Mom won’t—I mean, if she doesn’t see it coming, it’ll be easier to stop her without—without hurting her.  Won’t it?”

Hurting.  Now, that was something Rumplestiltskin burned to do, after what Regina had done to Belle, to his son, to everyone. 

But, he couldn’t do that to Bae’s son.

“I won’t hurt her more than I have to,” Rumplestiltskin promised.  It was a weak promise.  Even Ashley Herman, the Cinderella that was, could have seen that.  Belle would certainly have asked, “No more than you have to _for what?_ ” It left room for him to do whatever he wanted.

And what he wanted was for Henry—and Belle and his newborn son—to be able to forgive him when he was done.

“Get Emma and your other grandparents here without Regina finding out about it, if you can,” Rumplestiltskin said.  “I need to make sure Belle and our baby are all right.  Then, when that’s done, we’ll deal with your other mother.”

Henry nodded.

XXXXX

When the Charmings came marching in, in all their militant and self-righteous glory, Rumplestiltskin felt a small ( _very_ small) touch of relief.  Regina wasn’t with them.  It looked like she was still blissfully ignorant of what was going on.

Much as he would have liked to trade witty banter with the Charmings all day (even if all of the wit was his), it was time to put an end to this farce.  He still made a couple jabs for the sake of habit and to see how the Charmings reacted.  Or didn’t react.

How had he not seen it before?  Oh, the little family of royals had always had their blind spots and their way of seeing the world in much simpler terms than it deserved.  But, he thought of how Emma had fought for young Ashley when she first came to town, compared to how she had thrown Belle to the wolves (even if she had pulled her back at the last minute).  He thought of the Snow White who had demanded he give her the answers that saved her daughter, little as she wanted to hear them, compared to this woman who couldn’t bear to learn anything uncomfortable.  All the while, Prince Charming, who had once herded a dragon to its death the same way he herded a sheep to its pen, stood by and did nothing.

They weren’t themselves, not anymore.  It was time to set that right.

He turned to his grandson.  “Henry?”

Henry pulled out his cell phone, searching Rumplestiltskin’s face one more time.  “Are you sure. . . ?”  He didn’t finish the question, and Rumplestiltskin wasn’t sure what reassurance he needed—or if he could give it.  Was he sure what he was doing?  Was he sure he was ready?  Was he sure there was no other way?

The answer to all of those was yes, but Henry wasn’t asking about Rumplestiltskin’s doubts, not really.  And he was the only one who could answer them.

“You’re the author,” he told his grandson gently.  “You tell me how this story ends.”

_It’s your choice.  I won’t make it for you._

Henry hit the number and waited till Regina picked up.

“Mom, I’m at the hospital.  You need to come.” His voice rose with pain and desperation.  “Please, Mom!”

Rumplestiltskin winced.  The pain in Henry’s voice was convincing because it was real.  A boy shouldn’t have to betray his mother, even if it was the right thing to do.

Or because people had convinced him it was the right thing to do.

_I’m sorry, Henry._

And, then, Regina was there.  Just as Rumplestiltskin had known she would be.  The chains were wrapped around her, pinning her to the floor, before she knew it was a trap.  Rumplestiltskin looked at his one-time student—at the woman who, in another world, might have been his daughter.

“You have things that aren’t yours, Regina,” he said.  “Time to give them back.” He looked at Belle and their son, remembering what she had done to them.  “Even if we have to cut them out of you.”

“Gold—” the sheriff began.

Rumplestiltskin ignored her.  He handed the baby to Belle, hiding the panic that welled up in him at letting his son go when they were surrounded by enemies.  He fought the urge to transport the three of them home and raise every magical barrier he could. 

But, coward though he was, there were some dangers better faced than fled, and he’d already made his choice.

Now he knew what to look for, it wasn’t hard to spot.  The blue rose had been the talisman she’d made for Belle, but there would be different ones for the others.  They had probably been just as large, once.  But, Regina would have had to bring them with her into the Underworld and to Camelot before that if she were going to keep filling up the emptiness inside her.

He wondered if that was why she hadn’t bothered with Belle’s rose.  Belle had meant to stay in the Land of the Living and her inclusion in the little holiday to Arthur’s court had been a last minute thing, a bit of Blue’s manipulation (Blue might be squeamish about killing with her own hands, but Rumplestiltskin wondered if she’d hoped he would die without Belle’s voice to anchor him in this world.  The magic flower she’d been given to warn her if he was dying had begun losing petals fast enough once she was gone). 

Knowing Regina, she might have thought she needed her victims in the same world as her, along with their talismans.  The truth was more complicated—if it hadn’t been, the bits of Belle Regina’s spell kept draining away when she wasn’t there to use them couldn’t have congealed into Belle’s other self.  Not that he intended to explain to Regina where she had gone wrong.  Instead, he reached out and summoned the charms to him.

She’d made them part of her keychain.  Cleverness or convenience?  Who asked awkward questions about a keychain, after all? Even if they did, it would be easy enough to blame Henry—or young Roland, who wasn’t around to deny it—of having bad taste in gifts.

There was something that might be mistaken for an oddly shaped cross but was really the hilt of a sword, an icy snowflake, and yellow Volkswagen less than an inch long.  Rumplestiltskin slipped the sword hilt off the chain.  By Regina’s standards, the spell she’d used to shrink it down was delicately made.  As her teacher, it had always frustrated him knowing she was capable of careful work; she just never bothered.  She also hadn’t bothered with the extra steps that would have helped keep the magic secure.  Rumplestiltskin only had to tug at a loose thread of spellwork and the whole thing unraveled, leaving a full-sized hilt in his hand.  He held it up.  “Do you remember this, Prince Charming?”

Emma rolled her eyes, jumping in before her father could answer.  “It’s a sword hilt.  Do you know how many of those are lying around Storybrooke?”

“Like this one?  None at all.” He kept his gaze fixed on the shepherd-prince.  “Do you remember, your highness?”

David gave it a queasy look. “It’s like the sword hilt Zelena had, back when she was making her spell.” He meant the spell to travel back in time that had almost erased them all from existence.  As part of that, Zelena had made a sword hilt that embodied the prince’s courage.

“It’s the same one.”

Ah, that got through to him.  No matter what Regina had taken from him, the assistant sheriff wasn’t a _complete_ fool.  Rumplestiltskin could see the wheels turning, slow (very slow) but sure.  Why would someone who’d tried to kill the prince and his family so many times keep this? The guilty, fearful look on Regina’s face told anyone looking there was no good answer.

Or it told anyone but Emma Swan.  She rolled her eyes again.  “So, Regina was keeping a magical talisman safe.  That’s not a crime.”

“Isn’t it?” Rumplestiltskin asked (and resisting the temptation to lecture her on the Enchanted Forest’s laws on magic she obviously hadn’t bothered studying). “That rather depends what she was doing with it, doesn’t it?”  He slipped the yellow car off the chain as he spoke.  Emma didn’t notice. 

“Right now, the only crime I’m seeing is illegal restraint.  Let Regina go, Gold.”

“Mom, she put a spell on you,” Henry said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Emma said.  “Regina’s our friend.  She wouldn’t do that.”  Behind her, her mother nodded wisely.

Rumplestiltskin fought the urge to roll his own eyes.  Best to be the voice of reason, here (if only because no one else was going to take the job).  “It wasn’t so much a spell as a theft,” Rumplestiltskin said.  “She took something from you.” He took a casual step towards Regina.  It also brought him closer to Emma.  He bent just a little, as if he were about to reach down to Regina.  Emma leaned closer to see what he was after.  “ _This,_ ” he said, grabbing Emma’s hand and pressing the car into it.

At the same moment, he set his spell in motion.  The talismans acted as conduits, letting Regina steal strength from her victims.  Now, Rumplestiltskin reversed the flow, taking back what Regina had stolen, letting the talisman melt back into the person it had come from.

“No!” Regina screamed.  “No, don’t let him do this to me!  Snow, David, stop him!”

Rumplestiltskin let Emma go.  She staggered back, eyes wide.  Freezing to death, Rumplestiltskin knew, was an almost comfortable death.  It was being brought back to warmth and life that was painful.  Emma had been drained and numb for a long time.  She might not have been two selves, the way Belle had but, from the shocked look on her face, having that emptiness inside her suddenly filled was just as painful.

Meanwhile, Snow and David (good, little zombies that they were), reached for him.  Rumplestiltskin sighed.  That was the problem with Regina, she never thought, she never _planned._  

He didn’t fight Snow and David.  He just pressed the remaining talismans against them and let his magic take care of the rest.  Behind him, Regina screamed some more. 

David, always the less talkative of the two, just looked horrified and shocked.  Snow looked even worse, but her attention was locked on her stepmother.  “Regina, how could you. . . .  _Why?_ Why did you do this? We trusted you.  How could you do this to us?”

Regina, in the past few seconds, had changed.  She looked smaller and shrunken in.  The coolness and poise she always seemed to have was gone. 

“Why?” she shouted.  “ _Why?_   Because, it’s not _fair_.  Look at yourself!  I sent an assassin to kill you, and you sat down and wrote a _letter._ You spent your last breaths _lecturing_ me on how to be a good ruler.  You lost everything, your father, your kingdom, and you went around teaching little birdies happy songs.  I used to hate you for it, how I could never make you hurt the way I did.  Now, it’s too late.  Even if I knew how, Henry would never forgive me.” She glared resentfully at her son.  Henry flinched back as if she’d hit him, but Regina didn’t seem to notice. “So, I tried to let it go.  I _tried._ But, it was never enough. 

“Then, I realized the truth, _why_ it was easy for you.  Life isn’t fair.  It gave you whatever you needed. You had more than anyone needed.  Why shouldn’t I take some of it?  _I_ needed it, not _you._ ”

She looked like a small, rabid beast, Rumplestiltskin thought.  Drained of everything she’d stolen, there was almost nothing left of her except anger and bitterness

 _And love?_ Rumplestiltskin wondered.  Whatever Regina said, whatever she did, did she still love Henry?

He hoped so, for Henry’s sake.  But, she loved her own father, hadn’t she?  And look how that turned out. 

What was it they said? _A love like that can grow to be nine-tenths hatred and still call itself love._ He wondered how close Regina’s ragged soul was to that.

Although, if he asked Belle, she might point out times he had come perilously close himself these past weeks.

In another life, Regina might have been his daughter. 

And Henry loved her.

With a sigh, he knelt down beside her.  “You’re stronger than you know, Regina,” he said.  “Even if you threw that strength away.  Let me give it back to you.”

Regina’s eyes widened in horror as she realized what he meant.  “No, you can’t!  I’m not—”

 _Right, don’t thank me._ He didn’t need a talisman for this.  Regina herself was the conduit, the half that had drained away the other part of her soul.  Somewhere in Storybrooke, the Evil Queen stopped and felt a moment’s surprise as this missing half of her heart reached out to her.

Rumplestiltskin had expected her to fight, to resist.  Perhaps, if she had truly understood what he was doing, she would have.  Perhaps not.  Perhaps she understood exactly what was happening.  All he knew for certain was that, at last, she felt whole.  The emptiness that had been eating away at her since she came into existence was filled.  The ragged wounds that defined her were being healed.

The Regina in front of him fought and screamed.  It didn’t stop him.

“There’s a story in this world,” Rumplestiltskin told her.  “A wise man said there were two dogs in his soul, one light, one dark, fighting forever.  The one who wins is the one he feeds.”  He decided not to comment on the state of his own soul, and Regina was too distracted to offer an opinion _._ “Snow White wasn’t better than you, Regina.  She wasn’t born with more light and strength.  She simply made different choices.  The mistakes you and I have made, those were our own.”

The gold chains fell away.  Regina jumped up.  “It’s not true,” she snarled.  “And it’s _not fair_.”  She held up her hands, ready to summon fireballs. Predictable as always.

No fireballs came.

“Ah, you may not be _entirely_ whole,” Rumplestiltskin said.  “I did keep one small part back.”  He held up the talisman he had made as the Evil Queen’s soul ran through his fingers and back to her source.  It was a small apple, ruby red.

“My magic,” Regina whispered.

“Indeed.  You should be careful cutting yourself in two.  It makes you vulnerable.”  He slipped it into his pocket, suddenly tired.  Time to finish this.  “I may give it back some day, if you can convince me I’ll be putting it in good hands. Now, get out, all of you.  Belle needs to rest.”  _We all do._

For once, blissfully, everyone agreed with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, I slipped in a couple more quotes/story references.
> 
> "A love like that can grow to be nine-tenths hatred and still call itself love," is from TIll We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, a retelling of Cupid and Psyche, the oldest known version of Beauty and the Beast.
> 
> I did a bit of research on the Two Dogs story. Despite claims that it is an old legend, the oldest print source for the modern version is from the 90's. A relatively different version dealing with real dogs dates to the 70's. Anonymous sources online claim it goes back father than that, but I like documentation.


	21. Something Just Like This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while. This is the third try. Hope I got it right.

By the time Belle and Oliver left the hospital (three days after Oliver was born because Doc was feeling nervous and wanted to play it safe), Storybrooke was over the first shock of Regina’s arrest.  Snow, David, Emma, and Henry had all been by to apologize.  It was longer and more sincere than the usual, half-hearted, “Oh, sorry about that,” Belle got when the Charmings remembered her at all. 

Still, Belle wasn’t surprised when Snow cleared her throat and said, “About babysitting. . . .”

Belle grimaced and didn’t try to hide it.  “Snow, I don’t have time—”

“I know,” Snow said. “That’s why I got you a list, along with rates and times they can work.  Grace Hatter volunteered, by the way, but I think her father would prefer you bring the baby over to their house, rather than have Grace out after dark, so you might want to turn her down gently.

“Granny and I got together and signed up people to bring you meals.  You should be OK for the next month.  But, if you don’t like Leroy’s cooking, try not to let him know. . . .”

XXXXX

Rumple came out of the kitchen as Belle was saying goodbye to the Charmings.  He’d left them alone, saying apologies were hard enough without an audience glaring at you, although he reminded her the house was covered in magical protections and that he’d be there in an instant if she called for him.  Belle, who had just been putting Oliver down for a nap when the visitors arrived, hadn’t _seen_ Rumplestiltskin frisk them for weapons or contraband magic before letting them in, but it wasn’t hard to imagine.

He was polite as they said their goodbyes but he must have seen the look on her face. “What did they do?” he asked as soon as the door closed.

Belle showed him the paper Snow had given her.  “Gave me a list of babysitters,” she said.  “And food.  Snow said they’d arranged meals.” Belle thought about the few hastily made, quickly forgotten promises of help Snow had made in the past.  “Do you think they meant it?”

“There’s meatloaf in the fridge,” Rumplestiltskin said.  “And potatoes and salad.  I put them there before you came down.”

“Meatloaf.”

“I checked for spells.  And poison.  It seems good.”

“This is so strange,” Belle said.  “Ruby called.  She wanted to see how I was and know when I’d be feeling up to visitors.  She said Granny wants to throw me a shower.”

“Ah,” Rumplestiltskin said.  “We could use some onesies.”

“She told me Snow and Emma promised to be there, if I wanted them.  If not, they won’t bother us.”

“Not bother us?” he snorted. “That’ll be a change. They’ve been freed from a spell, not transformed.”

Belle gave him a mock glare, but just for a moment.  “This is the way I thought Snow White and Prince Charming were supposed to be when I first heard the stories about them.  I think they _were_  like this at the very beginning, when the curse broke.  I remember when David came with you to find me in the mines.  He . . . cared.  Or I thought he did.” She looked at Rumple, bewildered.  “Is this real?  Or will they get over feeling guilty in a day or two and go back to how they were?”

“I don’t think they can go back, not now.  Regina’s locked up awaiting trial.  The sheriff’s office is finally working through their backlog.  There’ve been any number of complaints they ignored because they didn’t involve magic or members of Emma’s family.  Another election’s been scheduled.  There’s talk of restructuring the government to give the town council more oversight for the mayor’s office.  Oh, and Hook got arrested.”

“What?”

Rumple smirked.  “Well, _gossip_ says Emma Swan went to tell her pirate they needed to take a break.  She probably didn’t come right out and say she’d been out of her mind when she started dating him, but it may have been implied.  The eyewitnesses only know that Emma and Hook had a very loud, very public breakup in front of The Rabbit Hole.  After that—and after word got out the sheriff’s office is acting like a sheriff’s office—a few people came forward to make complaints about Hook. 

The first was from the dockyards.  It seems the good captain hasn’t paid any docking fees since he came to town. 

Then, some questions about ship ownership came up.  It seemed Hook had told Emma he’d sold his ship.  That raised the question of how he got it back.  Your friend, Ariel, said he’d gotten Ursula to reach across worlds and grab it with her tentacles.  That sounded like grand theft, but Ariel also said it had been stolen from him by a man named Blackbeard.  That might have been the end of it, but Ariel also mentioned how Hook nearly got her husband, Eric, killed when he was trying to steal the boat back the first time. 

“That was when several people finally got the courage to tell the sheriff about times Hook had attacked them and threatened to kill them if they reported it.  It seems to have been a hobby of his. 

“Then, Captain Nemo—who _has_ been paying his docking fees—came forward with one of his crew.  It seemed the crewman was Hook’s half-brother, and Hook murdered their father.

“At this point, Hook had been locked up.  The judge set bail, although, personally, I would consider the good captain a flight risk. But, he set the amount far higher than anything he could pay on his own.  As Miss Swan is the only bail bonds person operating in Storybrooke, a clear conflict of interest, they were trying to figure out how to make arrangements with one from out of town.  While that was happening, Henry, who is a very bright lad, decided to look over _The Jolly Roger._   He found where Hook had hidden several of his valuables, including a ring that Henry realized looked like the one Snow White always wears.  They were part of a matching set.  Snow’s ring belonged to David’s mother.  This ring belonged to his father.  That was when Emma remembered how, when she was under the Dark Curse, Hook told her kept rings from people he’d killed. It seems it had slipped her mind till then.”

“He killed David’s _father?_ ”

“So it seems.  I don’t think we need to worry about Mr. Jones for some time.  But, my point is, they took this seriously from the start, when it was just a matter of docking fees.  He was arrested long before David knew he had a personal stake in the matter.  So, yes, I think they’ve changed.”

“And, the Blue Fairy?  What about her?  Rumple, she tried to steal our child, and I still don’t understand why.”

Rumple hesitated.  Belle couldn’t quite read his expression.  Embarrassment?  _Fear?_   “I think it was because . . . my mother was a fairy.”

“She was a. . . ?  But, fairies don’t—I mean, I know Astrid and Leroy—but, they said—fairies _don’t—”_

“Ah, well, sometimes, they do.  They’re supposed to give up their wings and become mortal.  But, it’s like plucking the wings off a butterfly and telling it it’s a caterpillar again.  It may change life expectancy and what they can do, but they’re still fairies.  My mother died when I was young, so I can’t tell you much more than that.  But, Reul Ghorm ignored my family when we were in danger for our lives.  She only came to ‘help’ Bae when it could hurt me.  I don’t think she’s changed.”

Belle thought of her son sleeping in his bassinet upstairs.  He was still so small—and so vulnerable.  “Do you think she’ll try something again?”

Rumple shook his head.  “There are rules fairies have to follow.  They’re magic is bound up in them.  What Regina did to you left you vulnerable.  But, even so, Reul Ghorm couldn’t just steal Oliver.  She needed at least the pretense that you’d given him to her.  She won’t be able to do that again.  And I have all the magic I can protecting this house.  She won’t get near him, not that way.”

“Not that way,” Belle said. “What about other ways?”

“She tricked Bae into going to another world, but her rules said he had to be old enough to call her himself and ask for her help.  We have at least that long before she tries something.”

“So, not until he starts preschool?”

“Probably.  Or we find a way to deal with her.  Or Emma Swan does. Or her parents.  Or someone else.  I don’t think even the Dwarves really trust her, now.  They used up a lot of their supply of fairy dust keeping me out, and the Dwarves have been putting off any new deliveries.  We can take steps.  We can prepare.  If she tries something, we can be ready for her.”

“There’s one other thing we can do,” Belle said.  She leaned close to him, her face turned so she could hear his heartbeat as she pressed against his chest.  Touch, the thing she had been missing for so long, trapped behind cold glass.  But, he was there, now.  She could see him, hear him, _feel_ the warmth of him against her skin—and feel herself, skin and bones and all between, and know she was free, she real, she was _herself._   “We can be happy right now.  We can enjoy this moment _right now._ We don’t have to let worrying about her take it away from us.”  She smiled up at him.  “Do you remember our wedding dance, Rumple?”

He smiled at her and snapped his fingers.  Music began to play. Gold took her in his arms and whirled her across the floor.  Belle, remembering how their wedding dance had ended, gave him a minxish smile.  It wasn’t a song she knew.  She couldn’t quote any of it.  All the words were new, and all of them were perfect.

 

_I've been reading books of old_  
_The legends and the myths_  
_Achilles and his gold_  
_Hercules and his gifts_  
_Spiderman's control_  
_And Batman with his fists_  
_And clearly I don't see myself upon that list_

_Where'd you wanna go?_  
_How much you wanna risk?_  
_I'm not looking for somebody_  
_With some superhuman gifts_  
_Some superhero_  
_Some fairytale bliss_  
_Just something I can turn to_  
_Somebody I can kiss_  
_I want something just like this_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, technically a quote. This song has played a lot while I was working on this, and it pretty much says where I hope Gold and Belle are at the end, starting on their happily ever after. That's "Something Just Like This," by Coldplay.
> 
> I have my suspicions about the connection between Blue and Rumple's mother that I wasn't able to fully bring into this story. I may get out a one shot giving the full tale later.
> 
> Questions, complaints (within reason and civility), and praise (I'm really into that one) are welcome.


End file.
